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3 





First Steps 

in the 
History of Our Country 



By 

WILLIAM A. MOWRY, Ph.D. 

and 
ARTHUR MAY MOWRY, A.M. 

Authors of "A History of the United States for Schools." 




SILVER, BURDETT AND COMPANY 

NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO 



^.1 






FOR THE STUDY OF AMERICAN HISTORY 



FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

By William A. Mowry, Ph.D., and Arthur May Mowry, A.M. Pp. 
320, profusely illustrated. The narrative of our country as told in the 
stories of 37 great Americans. 

A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, for Schools. 

By William A. Mowry, Ph.D., and Arthur May Mowry, A.M. Pp. 
466, highly illustrated. Accurate in statement, clear and graphic in 
style, patriotic and unpartisan in spirit. Introductory price, ^i.oo. 

HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

By TowNSEND MacCoun, A.m. Pp. 48, 43 colored maps with text. 
Introductory price, 90 cents. 

HISTORICAL CHARTS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

By TowNSEND MacCoun, A.M. 20 charts, 38x40 inches, containing 26 
progressive maps, in high colors, for school and lecture-room use. Intro- 
ductory price, with supporter, ^15.00. 

Both the " Historical Geography " and the " Historical Charts " portray the ap- 
pearance of the map of our country after each of its changes until the present. 



16820 



Copyright., i8g8 

By SlLVEK BURDETT AND COMPANY 



1890. 




FLIMPION &. CO., PRINTERS & BINDERS, 
NORWOOD, MASS., U.S.A. 



^0 COPIES RECEIVED. 



THE MEMORY OF 

C. E. M. 



Preface 

The study of the history of our country is every year becoming 
more and more important. New books for the young on history, 
biography, and historical fiction are constantly appearing. It is now 
very generally admitted that this study should be taken up at an 
earlier age than has hitherto been customary. Everybody now agrees 
that the schools should have an elementary book preceding the regu- 
lar, systematic pursuit of this branch in the two higher grades of the 
grammar school. 

But this preliminary book should not be an " epitome" of the his- 
tory of our country. It ought not to be a history for more mature 
pupils, boiled down to the size of a small book for smaller boys and 
girls. Such a book should have no place in the schools. The bio- 
graphical plan has great advantages for beginners in the study of this 
subject. History is a record of events. Events presuppose actors, 
who bring about the events. It is the action of men and women 
that makes history both valuable and interesting. 

Another important factor in this elementary study of history is to 
create a love for the study in the minds of the children. It is, there- 
fore, necessary that this early treatise should be written in the most 
entertaining and engaging manner. To this end but few characters 
can be made prominent. The leading events of each period are made 
to cluster around a few leading persons. There are many other great 
personages in the history of our country, but it is by no means neces- 
sary to give them a place in this preliminary book. A proper presen- 
tation of the lives of the " history-makers" will tend to cultivate a 
taste for further reading and study. As an aid to teachers and pupils, 
a select list of books appropriate for supplementary reading has been 
prepared. 

In a book like this, the authors have thought it important to confine 
the attention of the pupils principally to the text itself. Hence they 
have omitted all analyses, reviews, foot-notes, appendices, etc. 



8 PREFACE. 

Recitations should be both by topics and by questions. A few 
topics have been introduced at the end of each chapter. These are 
merely suggestive and more should be added by every teacher. Of 
course the topical recitation should be supplemented by questions 
which the teacher will devise at the time, and which will tend to bring 
out the main points of the lesson, especially those that the pupils have 
failed to note in reciting upon the topic. It is expected that each 
teacher will prepare and use his own questions, appropriate to the 
particular class under his instruction, according to the advancement, 
age, grade, and capacity of the class and the amount of time at his 
disposal. 

The authors accordingly have not thought it best to introduce full 
and complete sets of questions, either to save time or to aid the teacher 
in conducting the recitation. They have, however, presented a few 
typical " thought-questions" at the end of each chapter. These are 
prepared only as hints and pointers, to suggest such a course to the 
teacher as will help to avoid the too usual parrot-like method of study 
— learning the words of the text but not getting down to the thought. 
These questions can be answered by the study of the text and by 
proper thought upon what the text says. Different answers to these 
questions by different pupils are to be encouraged by the teacher. 
Independence of thought and expression is of deep importance. 

In the teaching of history, geographical connections should be con- 
stantly observed. The study of history aids the geography and the 
geography is everywhere an aid to the history. At the time that the 
pupils are studying history by this book they are usually studying 
geography also. Each will help the other. 

The authors have not thought it wise to introduce many dates. 
Only a few should be memorized at this early period. It is recom- 
mended that all dates in the text which are found in parentheses 
should not be via/iorized. Neither should be the dates at the beginning 
of the chapters, which show the years of the birth and the death of the 
person whose name heads the chapter, be committed to memory. 

W. A. M. 
A. M. M. 




;^^f^^ 




^3 



CHAl'TER 










I'AGE 


I.— Christopher Columbus (The Beggar), . 




15 


II. — Christopher Columbus (T'ne Prince), . 






22 


III. — John Cabot, .... 










30 


IV. — Ferdinand de Soto, 










36 


V. — Sir Walter Raleigh, . 










41 


VI. — John Smith, ._ 










48 


VII. — William Bradford, 










56 


VIII. — John Winthrop, . 










(>z 


IX. — Williams and Hooker, 










68 


X. — Peter Stuyvesant, 










74 


XL — Lord Baltimore, . 










82 


XII. — William Penn, 










87 


XIII. — King Philip, . 










93 


XIV. — Cavalier de la Salle, . 










99 


XV. — James Wolfe, 










. 104 


XVI. — Samuel Adams, 










. Ill 


XVII. — Paul Revere, . 










. 121 


XVIII. — George Washington, . 










. 129 


XIX. — Nathaniel Greene, 










. 140 



lO 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER 

XX. — Benjamin Franklin, 
XXI. — George Rogers Clark, 
XXII. — Alexander Hamilton, 
XXIII. — Thomas Jefferson, 
XXIV. — Robert Fulton, . 
XXV. — Stephen Decatur, 
XXVI. — Andrew Jackson, 
XXVII. — Calhoun, Clay, Webster, 
XXVIII. — Samuel Houston, 
XXIX. — Marcus Whitman, 
XXX.— Samuel F. B. Morse, . 
XXXI. — Abraham Lincoln, 
XXXIL— Robert E. Lee, . 
XXXIII.— Ulysses S. Grant, 
XXXIV.— David G. Farragut, . 
XXXV. — Horace Mann, . 
XXXVI.— Clara Barton, . 
XXXVIL— Thomas A. Edison. 



PAGE 
146 

166 

184 

199 

208 

228 

243 

255 
262 

270 
277 
290 
302 



Illustrations 



Westward the Course of Empire, 
The Nation's Capitol at Washington, 



Columbus in his Study, . 


15 


Columbus Begging Shelter, . 


15 


The Boy Columbus, . 


16 


Columbus Sneered At, 


19 


Columbus Crossing Atlantic, . 


21 


Columbus Landing, . 


22 


Flagship of Columbus, 


23 


Columbus in Chains, 


27 


Coat of Arms of Columbus, . 


29 


Embarkation of John Cabot, . 


30 


Cabot's Ship among Icebergs, 


32 


A Bear Catching Cod, 


34 


Royal Arms of England, 


35 


De Soto's Men in the Swamp, 


36 


Burial of De Soto, . 


39 


Portrait of Sir Walter Raleigh, 


41 


Raleigh and the Queen, . 


41 


Raleigh's Frightened Servant, 


45 


Virginia Dare, Seized by Indians 


46 


Indian Pipes, .... 


47 


Portrait of Capt. John Smith, 


48 


Smith as a Swordsman, . 


48 


Smith as a Slave, 


48 


Smith Exploring the River, . 


51 


Indians Wonder at Smith Writing 


52 


Wedding of Pocahontas, . 


53 


Signature of King James I., . 


55 


A Pilgrim Governor, 


• 56 


A Ship from England, 


56 


The Mayfloiver in Winter, 


59 



Frontispiece 
Page 14 

In a Pilgrim's Home, 
A Spying Indian, 
Standish and the Challenge, . 
Portrait of Governor Winthrop, 
The Six Ships at Salem, . 
Governor Endicott's Pear-tree, 
Mrs. Winthrop Packing, . 
Roger Williams Driven Out, . 
First Church at Salem, . 
Williams Meeting Friendly In 

dians, 

Hooker's Expedition to Connecti 

cut, 

On Narragansett Bay, 
Portrait of Peter Stuyvesant, 
View of New Amsterdam, 
Hudson Sailing up the River, 
Stuyvesant and Petitioners, 
English Fleet at New Amsterdam 
Portrait of Lord Baltimore, . 
Baltimore's Landing, 
Maryland Cavalier Protecting i 

Puritan, .... 
Portrait of William Penn, 
Penn's House in Philadelphia, 
Penn before King Charles, 
Pennsylvania Manor House, . 
Penn's Talk with the Indians, 
King Philip, .... 
The Pioneer's Enemy, 



PAGE 

60 
60 
61 
63 
63 
64 
66 
68 
69 

70 

72 
73 
74 

74 
75 
77 
79 
82 
82 

85 
87 
87 
89 
90 
92 
93 
93 



12 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE 

Annawan a Prisoner of War, . . 96 
Indian Weapons, .... 98 
A French Explorer, .... 99 
First Vessel on the Lakes, . . 100 
A Birch Bark Canoe, . . . 103 
Portrait of General Wolfe, . . 104 
Heights of Abraham, . . . 104 
Wolfe on the Way to Battle, . 106 

The Death of Wolfe, . . .108 
Portrait of Samuel Adams, . .111 
Old South Church, . . . .111 

Faneuil Hall, iii 

"No Tea on Our Table," . . 114 
Boston "Tea Party," . . . 116 
Early New England House, . .118 
Paul Revere's Midnight Ride, . 121 
The Fight at Concord, . . .125 

A Minute-man, 126 

Flag of Bunker Hill, . . . 127 

Revolutionary Musket, . . . 128 
Washington at Valley Forge, . 129 

Mount Vernon, 131 

The Washington Elm, . . 132 

Washington's First Sight of the 

Stars and Stripes, . . • nS 
Washington at Monmouth, . . 137 
Washington at Trenton, . . 138 

Portrait of Gen. N. Greene, . 140 

Greene Watching British Drill, . 140 
"I want a Book," . . . .141 
Colonel Tarleton's Rebuff, . . 144 
Portrait of Benjamin Franklin, . 146 
Franklin and his Kite, . . .146 
Young Franklin Laughed at by his 

Future Wife, . . . .148 
Franklin and Queen of France, . 151 
"Independence Hall," . ■ • 152 
Franklin at the Constitutional 

Convention, .... 153 

Clark and Emigrant Flatboat, . 157 
Midnight Escape to the Fort, . 159 
Clark at the British Dance, . . 162 
Pushing into the Northwest, . . 165 
Young Hamilton's First Speech, . 166 
Portrait of Alexander Hamilton, . 166 



Hamilton at Yorktown, . 
Washington's Inaugural Journey, 
Federal Hall, New York, 
Old Continental Money, . 
Portiait of Thomas Jefferson, 
Jefferson Writing Declaration of 
Independence, .... 
Patrick Henry in his Great Speech, 
Napoleon Decides to Sell Louisiana, 
Livingston Congratulating Monroe, 
Lady and Gentleman of 1800, 
Portrait of Robert Fulton, 
Modern "Ocean Greyhound," 
Modern Warship, 
Fitch's Steamboat, . 
Stevens' Steamboat, 
First Trip of Fulton's Clermont, 
Statue of Fulton in the Capitol, 
Portrait of Decatur, 
Burning of the Philadelphia, . 

United States Capturing Macedo' 

nian, ..... 
The Famous U. S. S. Constiiidioti 

Perry at Battle of Lake Erie, 

Portrait of Andrew Jackson, . 

The Capitol in 1825, 

British Officer Ordering Young 
Jackson to Clean His Boots, 

General Jackson at Battle of New 
Orleans, . . . . . 

Traveling by Canal Boat, 

Early Railway Train, 

Calhoun, Clay, and Webster, 

Clay Forgetting his Poetry, . 

Webster's Reply to Hayne, 

Portrait of Samuel Houston, . 

The Alamo, 

The "Lone Star" Flag, . 

General vScott in Mexico, 

Discovery of Gold in California. . 

Across the Continent, 

The " Ride for Oregon," 

Death of Whitman, 

Portrait of Professor Morse, . 

Network of Telegraph Wires, 



170 
171 
173 
174 

174 
175 
179 
180 

183 

184 
184 
184 

iSs 
186 
]88 
189 
igo 



193 
1-95 
197 
199 
199 

200 

203 
205 
206 

2C8 
212 
216 
220 
220 
221 
223 
224 
228 
231 

235 
23s 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



13 



PAGE 

Morse's News of his Success, . 238 
Laying an Ocean Cable, . . 241 
Portrait of Abraham Lincoln, . 243 
Dome of the Capitol, . . . 243 
Lincoln's Birthplace, . . . 244 
Young Lincoln Studying by Fire- 
light, 247 

Fort Sumter Fired on, . . . 250 
Portrait of Jefferson Davis, . -251 

Lincoln Freeing the Slave, . . 253 

Portrait of Gen. R. E. Lee, . . 255 

Arlington, the Home of Lee, . 255 

A Confederate Soldier, . . . 256 

Lee and Jackson at Chancellorsville, 258 

Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg, . 260 

Confederate Flag of i86i, . . 261 

Portrait of General Grant, . . 262 

Into the Wilderness, . . . 262 

A Federal Soldier, .... 263 

Grant in the Wilderness, . . 265 

Portrait of General Sherman, . 266 

Grant's Tomb, 269 

St. Gaudens' Statue of Farragut, . 270 



Attack of Ram on the Hartford, 
Federal Fleet in Mobile Bay, 
Young Farragut and his Father, 
Farragut's Mortar Boats, 
Farragut in the Rigging, 
Statue of Horace Mann, 
Boston State House, 
Old-Time Country School, 
After Spelling-school, 
Master Mending Quill Pen, 
The Nation's New I^ibrary, 
Raising Schoolhouse Flag, 
Portrait of Clara Barton, 
Nurse in the Civil War, 
Red Cross Nurse on Battle-field, 
The Johnstown Flood, 
Battleship MaiJie at Havana, 
The Maine after the Explosion, 
Portrait of Thomas A. Edison, 
Corner of the Laboratory, 
Gold Hunters in Alaska, 
Young Edison Selling Papers, 
Edison and New York Operator, 



PAGE 
270 
27f 

271 

272 

274 
277 
277 
279 
281 
283 
286 
28S 

290 
290 

295 

296 

298 
299 
302 
302 

303 
306 
308 



List of Maps. 



Map that Columbus Studied, 
Route of Columbus, 
What Columbus Discovered, 
What Cabot Discovered, 
Long March of De Soto, 
Where Raleigh Landed, 
Where John Smith Explored, 
Where Pilgrims and Puritans Set- 
tled, 

Where Baltimore Started his Colony, 
What La Salle and Hennepin 

Opened for France, . 
Our Country before the French War, 



17 Our Country after the French War, 

24 Map of Revere' s Ride, . 

28 Map of Yorktown, . 

34 The Young Nation at its Start, 

37 The Old "Northwest," . 

42 United States in 1802, 

49 United States in 1803, 
United States in 1845, 

57 United States in 1846, 

83 United States in 1848, 

The Old "Oregon Country," 

102 Map of Lee's Battles, 

109 The Civil War, .... 



PAGE 

log 
122 
143 
156 
164 
181 
181 
227 
027 

22j 
229 

257 
267 




c ft- 



'S. 2" 




Christopher Columbus 



1436-1506 



I. THE BEGGAR 



On the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, where the penin- 
sula of Italy widens to join the continent of Europe, stands 
the city of Genoa. Here, four hundred and fifty years ago, 
was born a boy who became a great sea-captain and who made 
one of the most famous voyages recorded in the history of the 
world. 

This boy's name was Christopher Columbus. His early 
life was very much like that of many other Italian boys. 
He went to school long enough to know something about 
arithmetic, geography, and astronomy, and to read Latin. 
His father was a wool-comber ; that is, a man who combs out 
the wool and prepares it for the weavers. 

For awhile Christopher worked at his father's trade, as it 
was the custom at that time for the eldest boy to have the 
same trade as his father. But he soon determined that he 
did not want to stay in Genoa and comb wool all his life. 
Instead, he wanted to go to sea and learn something of the 
world. 

It is not strange that he had this desire. Genoa was a 
busy seaport town, many of its inhabitants were sailors, and 



i6 



FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



vessels were continually coming and going in its beautiful 
harbor. Columbus, like other boys, doubtless enjoyed going 
down to the wharves and hearing the sailors tell stories of the 
countries they had seen. 

When he was about fourteen years old he became a sailor, 

and for years led an adventurous life. Retook part in many 

sea-fights and sailed wherever vessels 

dared to venture. People now would not 

call him a great traveler, but in those 

. . days sailors were afraid 

I to go far from sight of 

land, and what seems to 

us a short distance was 

then a very long journey. 

^ If we should take a 



~i 




map of the world as it was 
known five or six hun- 
dred years ago and com- 
pare it with the maps of 
to-day, we should find a 
great difference. There 
was no North nor South 
America, no Australia, on 
the maps that Columbus 
studied. People did not 
even dream that any such lands existed. Europe was the 
only continent that was well known. Only the northern 
portions and some parts of the western coast of Africa had 
been visited, and most of Asia was unexplored. 

The unknown lands were thought to be filled with huge 
dragons and other fearful beasts ; the men, instead of being 
small like the inhabitants of Europe, were supposed to be 



THE BOY COLUMBUS. 



CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 



17 



great and terrible giants. Sailors said that in the Atlantic 
Ocean were monsters so large that they could take vessels 
upon their backs and dash them in pieces. Many other 
foolish and impossible stories were also believed. 

When Columbus was a young man people were beginning 
to get over these notions. The compass had been invented, 
which showed sailors how to direct their vessels, even when 




THE MAP THAT COLUMBUS STUDIED. 



they could not see land, or sun, or stars. Now they were 
able to go farther from the shore. When the terrible things 
which they expected to find did not appear, they grew braver 
and the next time sailed a little farther. 

More than a hundred years before the birth of Columbus, 
a man named Marco Polo wrote a book in which he described 
his travels in Asia. Wonderful stories of countries almost 
unknown were told. He said that these lands were rich in 
gold and jewels, and that fragrant spices and costly woods 



15 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

were abundant. Of course people were anxious to see these 
countries and obtain wealth. But to do this they would have 
to make an expensive and dangerous journey across Asia on 
camel-back. So some of the wise men thought that if ves- 
sels could only sail around the southern part of Africa, it 
would be an easier and less costly journey. 

Columbus, while a young man, had been doing something 
more than fighting and sailing from one country to another. 
He had been reading books on geography and science, and 
he had thought and planned until finally an idea took com- 
plete hold of him. The idea was this. If he could sail 
straight west across the Atlantic Ocean, he thought that he 
would reach the eastern coast of Asia and thus make a shorter 
voyage than that around Africa. This would prove that the 
world was round and not fiat, as everybody still believed 
except a few of the most learned men. 

How could Columbus carry out his plan? He had no 
ships and he had no money to buy them. He was but a poor 
sailor, supporting himself by making maps and charts. Be- 
sides, only some king or prince could send out an expedition 
such as would be needed, and Columbus had no friends at 
court to take up his cause. At the very beginning his plan 
seemed hopeless, and a less persistent man would have given 
up in despair. 

Portugal had been for a long time more interested in 
sending out vessels on voyages of discovery than any other 
country of Europe. Columbus thought that its king might 
listen to his plan and give him help. Therefore he went to 
Lisbon and in time came before the king. King John called 
all his wise men together. They discussed the matter, and 
decided that it was impossible to make a voyage such as Co- 
lumbus planned. 



CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 



19 



Some said, however, that there might be something in it, 
and that it would be a shame for Portugal to lose the glory 
of making the discovery. Therefore they decided to send 
out a vessel privately, without the knowledge of Columbus. 
This vessel sailed westward a few days, and then, because 
the sailors became frightened, came back and reported that 




COLUMBUS SNEERED AT IN COURT. 



the voyage could not be made. Columbus was very angry 
with the king when he learned of his deceit. He left Portu- 
gal and went to try his fortunes at the Court of Spain. 

Columbus could hardly have chosen a more unfortunate 
time to seek aid from Ferdinand and Isabella, the king and 
queen of Spain. They were in the midst of a fierce and 
costly war against the Moors, who had possession of the 
southern part of the Spanish peninsula. It could scarcely be 



20 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

expected that they would be willing to furnish money to aid 
an entire stranger, unless they were quite sure that his plan 
would be successful. Consequently Columbus was put off 
again and again. 

At one time the king and queen went so far as to ask the 
opinions of the wisest men of the kingdom. These learned 
men laughed at the idea, and brought up all the old argu- 
ments and superstitions to prove that Columbus was entirely 
wrong. Columbus, however, was not easily discouraged, for 
he believed thoroughly in his plan. A few noblemen became 
his friends, but many thought him crazy. He was called the 
" man with the cloak full of holes." Even the children in the 
streets would point at him as he passed by. 

At last Columbus became quite discouraged and decided 
to leave Spain. Taking his boy by the hand, he started on 
the long journey to France on foot. One day, tired and 
hungry, they stopped at the door of a convent, and Columbus 
asked for a bit of bread and a cup of water for his son. 
While they were resting, the prior walked by, and seeing 
the strangers stopped to talk with them. It was not long 
before he drew out the story of the traveler's life. He 
became interested, and he determined, if possible, to keep 
Columbus in Spain. 

This good man had once been Queen Isabella's priest, 
and he knew that she would listen to what he said. There- 
fore he kept Columbus at the convent and hurried off to see 
the queen. He told her that Columbus was an honest man, 
and that what he said was true. To be sure, it would cost 
something to help him, but what would a little money be 
compared with the glory that would fall to Spain if the voy- 
age should be successful? 

Queen Isabella listened to the priest's plea and sent for 



CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 



21 



Columbus to come back to court. He arrived just as the 
Moors surrendered. Soon after he was summoned before 
the king and queen to describe his plans again, but he de- 
manded so high a reward if he came back successful that they 
declared it would be impossible to help him. He would not 
accept anything less, and again everything was given up. 

Columbus mounted his donkey and started once more for 
France. But the queen soon became sorry that she had al- 
lowed him to leave. She sent messengers after him in great 
haste to tell him that she had decided to furnish the money 
for ships and provisions for the voyage. Once more Colum- 
bus turned back. All the long weary years of waiting were 
at an end. At last the time had come to prove to those who 
had made such sport of him that he was not so wholly wrong 
after all. 

Tell the story of Columbus: as* a boy; as a sailor; at the coiirt of 
King John; at the court of Spain; at the convent; as, at last, he 
obtains aid. 

Give an account of Marco Polo and the effect of his book. 

Explain what was the great idea of Columbus. 

How did the studies of Columbus, when a boy, help him in his 
great discovery? What route of travel did people use in going to Asia 
after spices and jewels? Why did people think that the earth was not 
round? Why did Columbus seek help from the courts rather than 
from rich men? Why was Columbus angry with the King of Portugal} 
Why was Columbus nicknamed? What made the prior interested in 
the poor beggar? 




Cofembui cros^in^ )Ke Art 




I Colun\b US . I 



CHAPTER II 

Christopher Columbus 

2. THE PRINCE 



We must not think that everything suddenly became 
smooth and easy for Columbus. He must get together ves- 
sels, men, and provisions, and this was a difficult task. Sail- 
ors were very superstitious and could scarcely be induced to 
go on this unknown voyage. They thought that if they went 
they would never see home and friends again. At last two 
brothers named Pinzon, who had wealth and influence, de- 
cided to go with Columbus. Others were induced to join 
them, and in time three little vessels were ready. 

These were very small, not so large as many of our fish- 
ing-boats. We should consider them hardly fit to sail from 
one port to another along the coast. In fact, only one of the 
three had a deck over the whole vessel. In the other two 
the deck covered only a part of the hold. Is it any wonder 
that the sailors were afraid to go ? 

Columbus, however, was not afraid. He believed he was 
going to succeed, and succeed he did, though not exactly as 
he expected. He thought that he was going to find the east- 



CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 



23 



ern coast of Asia, and King Ferdinand gave him a letter of 
introduction to the King of China. We shall see whether he 
had a chance to use it or not. 

Finally the last good-byes were said, and on one bright 
summer morning the little vessels turned their prows west- 
ward and were gone. For two days all 
went well, but, on the third, one of the --_''^" 

vessels broke its rudder. Fortunately -^-^- — : 
they were not far from the Canary 
Isles; they sailed into port to mend 
the rudder and change the sails of one 
of the vessels. 

After spending nearly a 
month at the islands, they 
once more set sail and went 
on day after day, though 
it seemed as if each day 
brought them no nearer 
land. The sailors became 
frightened at the length of 
the voyage, and Columbus 
felt obliged to keep from 
them the true number of 
miles they sailed each day. 
compass did not point just as it did at home, and the wind 
always blew from the east. The sailors thought that they 
surely would never get home again, for they would need a 
west wind to help them sail back. One day the wind 
changed and that trouble was ended. 

Still every strange thing frightened them, and their fear 
increased as each day went by and no land appeared. At 
one time they talked of throwing Columbus overboard, so 




THE FLAGSHIP OF COLUMBUS. 



Besides, the needle of the 



24 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

that they might be free to go home. We must not blame 
them too severely for this. They were only poor ignorant 
sailors, and had never been so far from home before. All 
watched eagerly for land ; nearly every day some one raised 
the cry of "Land!" This served only to make them more 
disappointed when what they saw proved to be only a cloud 
on the horizon. 

At last all decided that land must be near. Many little 
birds flew about the vessels ; a fish which only lives near the 




ROUTE OF COLUMBUS. 




shore was seen ; a branch with red berries floated by ; and a 
piece of wood with marks on it, that could only have been 
made by men, was picked up. All murmuring ceased, and 
every one was on the watch to be the first to catch sight of 
the long-desired land. 

One night, as Columbus stood on the deck of his vessel, 
he thought he saw a light far off in the distance, which flashed 
out brightly several times and then vanished. Later, the cry 
of "Land! land!" came from one of the vessels. This time 



CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 25 

it was no false call. With daylight a beautiful island covered 
with green trees and tropical plants appeared. The vessels 
were anchored ; boats were lowered ; and Columbus and his 
companions, richly dressed, were rowed to the shore. 

As soon as they landed, Columbus knelt, kissed the earth, 
and gave thanks to God for having brought them safely on 
their voyage. Then he arose, planted his ilag, and took pos- 
session in the name of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. We 
must not forget the day on which Columbus reached the 
island, as it is the first important date in the history of the 
New World. It was October 21st, 1492 (or October 12th by 
the old style of reckoning). 

The inhabitants of the island, who at first had been fright- 
ened and had fled, now came up, bringing simple presents. 
They had never before seen men with white skins nor boats 
with great sails. They thought that the vessels were huge 
birds which had come from heaven, and that the men were 
gods. They gave the newcomers the best they had and 
treated them as superior people. Poor creatures ! it was not 
many months before they found that these white people were 
very unlike gods. 

The natives had a dark, copper-colored skin, and wore 
little or no clothing. Their hair was straight and black, their 
eyes bright, and their bodies well formed. They lived an 
easy, simple life. Everything they needed for food grew 
abundantly and was close at hand. So long as they had plenty 
to eat and shelter from storms, they required nothing else. 
Columbus called them Indians, because he thought that the 
island was off the coast of India. This name they kept, even 
after it was found that they did not live on one of the East 
Indies, but in a new and hitherto wholly unknown part of the 
world. 



26 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

After this the vessels sailed from one island to another, 
seeking the rich kingdoms of Asia and gold. But Asia did 
not appear and gold was obtained only in small quantities. 
Among the islands discovered was Hayti, which Columbus 
called Hispaniola or Little Spain. Here his largest vessel 
went ashore through the carelessness of one of the sailors, 
and could not be repaired. 

Columbus decided that this would be a good place to leave 
some of his followers. These men were to make a home on 
the island and put things in readiness, so that others could 
come out from Spain and join the colony. He built a fort 
from the timbers of the wrecked vessel, left on the island 
about forty men, and started back to Spain. 

It was now winter and a severe storm came on. It seemed 
as though the vessels would be destroyed and all on board 
lost. Therefore Columbus wrote two accounts of his voyage 
and his discoveries, and put them in two casks. These he 
placed on the deck in such a manner that if the vessel sunk 
they would be washed off. He hoped that in time they 
might float to shore and tell the story of the voyage, even if 
the whole expedition were lost. 

Fortunately the vessels were not destroyed, and the port 
of Palos was reached in safety. There was great rejoicing in 
Spain at the return of the expedition. A procession was 
formed, in which Columbus rode in state, preceded by the 
Indians whom he had brought back with him and by men 
bearing fruits and treasures from the land which he had 
discovered. 

He was treated like one of Spain's greatest noblemen, 
and was given a seat in the presence of the king and queen 
while he told them the story of the voyage. How dif- 
ferent was this from his first entrance into Spain ! Then 



CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 



27 



he was a poor, unknown man — now he was a prince, honored 
by all. 

Almost immediately preparations were made for a second 
voyage. This time there was no difficulty in finding- men 
willing to go. Every one, from the poorest sailors to the 
nobles in court, wanted to gain a fortune in the new land. 
In a few months, seventeen vessels and fifteen hundred men 
were ready. They reached the islands without mishap, and 
anchored in the harbor 
near which the colony had 
been left the year before. 

No signs of men or 
buildings were to be seen. 
The place was deserted and 
the fort completely de- 
stroyed. Columbus sought 
another place in which to 
leave his new colony. He 
selected a harbor thirty or 
forty miles distant, and 
commenced to build a city. 
This city, the first in the 
New World, was named 
Isabella, in honor of the 
Queen of Spain. 

Now began Columbus' 
misfortunes. He was well fitted for a life of exploration ; 
he was a man of great earnestness and persistence of pur- 
pose, but he was not a good governor. He made many mis- 
takes and more enemies. When it was found that gold 
was not to be picked up everywhere as was expected, and 
that every one was obliged to work hard to obtain even a 




COLUMBUS RETURNING IN CHAINS. 



28 



FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



living, the colonists became very angrv and declared that 
Columbus was an impostor. 

So many complaints came from the colony to Spain that 
at last Ferdinand sent out a man to look into the truth of the 
stories. He thought it a good opportunity to make himself 
governor; therefore he put Columbus in chains and sent him 
back to Spain. Upon his arrival the people were indignant 
at the treatment he had received. They thought that even if 
he had made mistakes he ought not to have been sent home 




HOW MUCH COLUMBUS DISCOVERED. 
(The 7vhite spots shoiu zvlicre he landed.) 

like a common criminal. The king and queen received him 
kindly and gave him back his property; but they decided 
not to send him again as governor of a colony. 

Columbus made four voyages of discovery in all. Soon 
after his last voyage he died, worn out by his many troubles. 
His body was carried across the Atlantic and buried on the 
Island of Hayti, which he had discovered. When that island 
was ceded to France, his remains were again taken over sea 



CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 



29 



and with great pomp deposited in the Cathedral in Havana, 
where they yet remain. To him belongs the honor of being 
the " Discoverer of the New World," even though it does not 
bear his name and though he died still believing that it was a 
part of Asia. 

Tell the story of the preparations for the voyage ; the voyage itself; 
the watching for land; the taking possession of the island; the re- 
turn to Spain; the second voyage; the harsh treatment of Columbus; 
his later life. 

Describe the people whom Columbus found on the islands. 

How did the Pinzon brothers aid Columbus? Did Columbus give the 
letter to the king of China? What do you think made the light which 
Columbus saw? How many years have passed since the discovery of 
America? What changed the Indians' idea of the white men? Why 
did Columbus biiild a fort? How did the Spaniards expect to gain a 
fortune in the new land? What became of the fort and the men whom 
Columbus left behind? 




COAT OF ARMS OF COLUMBUS. 




CHAPTER III 



John Cabot 



On the maps drawn four and five hundred years ago, the 
Atlantic Ocean, instead of a broad expanse of water west of 
Europe, was represented as being full of islands. Many sto- 
ries of these islands were told by sailors, who said that land 
could frequently be seen, lying low on the horizon, as the 
sun set over the western sea. 

Some of the islands were supposed to be large and impor- 
tant, especially the Island of Brazil and the Island of the 
Seven Cities. The latter was said to be inhabited by Chris- 
tians, who, years before, had fled from seven cities of Asia 
under their seven bishops, and had taken refuge across the 
ocean. 

For years the merchants of Bristol, England, had sent out 
vessels to search for these fabled islands. One of the com- 
manders of these expeditions was John Cabot. He had been 
one of the foremost in these explorations, as he felt quite cer- 
tain that, somewhere in the western ocean, land could be 
found. Thus far he had been unsuccessful, for he had at no 
time sailed far enough west to reach the American coast. 



JOHN CABOT. 31 

John Cabot, like Columbus, was born at Genoa, but he 
had lived for many years in Venice and is usually called a 
Venetian. He was a skilled and experienced seaman, who 
had sailed on many waters and had been in many countries. 
He had traveled east as far as Mecca, the Holy City of Ara- 
bia. There he had seen caravans loaded with fragrant spices 
that had come from the far East. He asked those who had 
charge where these spices grew, and received the answer that 
they had been brought by other caravans that had come from 
still farther east. 

Whether Cabot had reasoned that these rich lands of Asia 
could be reached by sailing west is not certain. But as soon 
as the news of Columbus' discovery reached England, Cabot 
immediately decided that he could sail west and reach the 
coast of Asia also. 

King Henry VH. of England, who naturally desired to 
share with Spain in the new discoveries, was pleased at the 
plan and promises of Cabot. He gave him and his three sons 
permission to sail, and soon a little ship was made ready for 
the voyage. This vessel was called the MattJiczv, and had a 
crew of but eighteen men. Three or four other vessels were 
fitted out for trading-purposes by the merchants of Bristol. 
These started with Cabot, but it is supposed that they went 
only a short distance and then turned back, leaving the little 
MattJicw to sail on alone. 

There is little known about this first voyage, except that 
it began early in May (1497). There could hardly have been 
any storms or serious hardships, as land was reached in June. 
This land, which Cabot called Newfoundland, is now known 
as Cape Breton Island, which is separated from Nova Scotia 
by a narrow channel. 

Thus Cabot was the first to find the mainland of Amer- 



z^ 



FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



ica. Although Columbus had by this time made a second 
voyage across the Atlantic, he had gone no farther than the 
islands that lie some distance from the coast. Not until the 
year after Cabot discovered the North American continent 
did Columbus succeed in reaching the coast of South America. 
It was no fertile, tropical land that Cabot found, but a bar- 




cabot's ship among icebergs. 

ren and unproductive region. No natives came to the beach 
to welcome him, thinking that the newcomers were gods. So 
long as the vessel stayed no Indians appeared. Still it was 
decided that there must be some inhabitants, as traps were 
discovered in the woods, arranged for catching wild animals. 
A needle for net-making was picked up. Besides, many 
trees were found notched, perhaps to guide those who were 
traveling through the forests. Cabot and his men, however, 



JOHN CABOT. 33 

did not stay long enough to make a very thorough search. 
As they had but little food with them, they started back to 
England in a few days. 

Their arrival caused the greatest excitement. The report 
got abroad that Cabot had discovered the Island of the Seven 
Cities and a portion of the coast of Asia. A writer of the 
time said that the Englishmen followed Cabot " like madmen." 
He was called "the Great Admiral." He dressed in silk and 
was treated like a prince. Cabot, unlike many others, did 
not wish to keep all his good fortune to himself. Instead, 
he wanted his friends and neighbors to share it with him. 
Some he appointed governors, others he made bishops over 
the new land which he had discovered. 

King Henry was so delighted at the success of the ex- 
pedition that he sent its leader the sum of ;^io, or about $50 
of our money. This seems a very small sum for a rich king 
to send to a man who had performed such a service as Cabot 
had. But Henry was a miserly king and it probably seemed 
a large sum to him. Besides, money went a great deal farther 
then than now. 

The next year a larger expedition was fitted out. Cabot 
planned to go west until he reached the land he had found 
the year before. Then he thought that if he sailed south he 
would come to the Island of Cipango, or Japan, where he ex- 
pected to fill his vessel with spices and jewels. Five or six 
ships started out early in the spring. This time they sailed 
farther north than before — so far that they met with many 
icebergs and the days were so long that there was almost no 
night. The sailors became frightened at the quantity of ice, 
and the vessels were turned to the south. 

From Labrador Cabot sailed along the coast of North 

America until he nearly reached the peninsula of Florida. 

3 



34 



FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 




WHAT CABOT DISCOVERED. 



Once he tried to form a 
colony. But the soil was 
barren, the men became 
discouraged, and the colony 
was given up. 

Although the land was 
for the most part unpro- 
ductive, the waters were 
wonderfully full of fish. 
In fact, Cabot called the 
country the " Land of the 
Codfish," because the seas 
contained .such quantities 
of cod. The bears of the 
country were almost harm- 
less, since they could ob- 
tain such an abundance of food. They were accustomed to 
swim out into the water and catch the fish in their claws. 
Terrible struggles would take place as the fish, which were 
large and strong, tried to get away. The bear would usually 

come off victor and would 
swim with its prey to the 
shore. Then it would eat the 
fish at its leisure. 

This is all we know of 
-^ John Cabot. After this sec- 
ond voyage no trace of him 
can be found. Whether he 
died on the return trip or 
soon after his arrival is not 
known. Why, then, should 
the boys and girls of the 




A BEAR CATCHING COD. 



JOHN CABOT, 



35 



United States know the story of this almost unknown 
man ? 

The reason is that, because of these two voyages of John 
Cabot, England laid claim to the whole Atlantic coast from 
Labrador to Florida. Because she laid claim to it, she sent 
out colonists to take possession. And because she sent colo- 
nists, the people of the United States speak the English lan- 
guage. Had it not been for John Cabot, we might now have 
for our native tongue the Spanish language, as do the people 
of Mexico and most of the nations of South America. 

Give an account of the fabled islands. Tell the story of Cabot: in 
early life ; on his first voyage ; on his return ; on his second voyage. 
Tell why Cabot supposed the new land to be inhabited. 
Tell Cabot's story of the fish. 

Do you suppose the fabled islands were really the coast of America, 
or were they low-lying clouds? What was the difference between the 
aid given by Queen Isabella to Columbus and that by King Henry to 
Cabot.-* Why do some people claim that Cabot and not Columbus dis- 
covered America? Do you think that Cabot ever knew that the land 
he had found was not Asia? Why do you suppose we know so little 
about the life of John Cabot? 




THE KOYAL ARMS OK ENGLAND. 




















CHAPTER IV 

Ferdinand de Soto 

1496-1542 



When it was known that a new world had been discovered 
beyond the Atlantic, great excitement took possession of the 
inhabitants of Spain. A splendid opportunity was now 
thrown open to all who were brave and adventurous to ex- 
plore these new regions. 

Those who were poor expected to gain great wealth, and 
those who were already rich wanted to add still more to their 
abundance. Not only was it said that gold, silver, and jew- 
els could be obtained in great quantities, but it was also re- 
ported that vsomewhere in this new world was a wonderful 
fountain. If anyone who was old should bathe in its waters, 
almost immediately his lost youth would return to him. This 
in the eyes of many would be of more importance than all the 
gold or jewels in the world. Therefore it was not strange 
that expedition after expedition was sent out, for all were 
anxious to obtain youth and riches. 

One of the bravest of the leaders of these expeditions was 
the young and courageous Ferdinand de Soto. He belonged 
to a noble vSpanish family, but was so poor that when he went 
on his first voyage he had no outfit but his sword and shield. 



FERDINAND DE SOTO. 



37 



He was the bravest of the brave, however, and his valor soon 
made up for his poverty. He gained riches in Peru and was 
promoted step by step until he became Governor of Cuba and 
President of Florida. 

Some one who had been to Florida had said that it was the 
richest country in the world. This traveler, seeing with the 
eyes of imagination, must have thought that the sand, spar- 
kling in the sunshine, was 




THE LONG MARCH OF DE SOTO. 



gold, and the many bright 
colored flowers jewels. 

But everybody shared 
fully in this belief, and 
thousands were crazy to 
go. So many prepared 
for the voyage that the 
ships would not hold 
them, and thus, disap- 
pointed, some had to stay 
behind. On a Sunday 
morning in early spring 

time (1539) seven ships set sail, with De Soto and six hun- 
dred eager companions on board. 

After touching at Cuba, De Soto arrived at Tampa Bay, 
on the western coast of Florida, without disaster. His plan 
was to go anywhere and everywhere in search of gold. At 
first he endeavored to capture some Indians who would serve 
as guides and interpreters. 

He met with a remarkable piece of good fortune. He 
came upon a Spaniard, John Ortiz, who had been seized by 
the Indians many years before. He had lived with the red 
men, first as a captive cruelly treated, and afterward as a 
friend and counsellor; consequently he knew their language 



38 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

and customs perfectly. No better guide and interpreter could 
have been found, and he was not at all unwilling to leave his 
Indian friends and cast in his lot with De Soto. 

Now began a terrible march, northward and westward. 
The ground was covered with thick woods. Vines and tan- 
gled creepers ran from tree to tree. There were no roads 
except here and there Indian paths. The country was full of 
bogs and marshes, in which the horses stuck fast and sank. 
Every few miles rivers were reached — some wide, some nar- 
row. When the travelers came to one that could not be 
forded, they made a rude bridge of trees; if the rivers were 
especially wide, they built boats. At times provisions were 
scarce, and men and horses grew thin and ill for lack of proper 
food. 

Added to all this, the Indians were hostile and treacher- 
ous. In the land through which De Soto first passed, white 
men had been before. These had treated the Indians with 
great cruelty, and the red men, in their turn, were ready to 
fight and deceive whenever it was possible. 

Then, too, De Soto was no improvement over the Span- 
iards whom the Indians had previously seen. When he 
passed into a region entirely unknown to white men, he was 
for a time received with kindness. The chiefs placed all 
their braves at his service and gave him plenty of food for 
his men and horses; in fact, gave him the best and all they 
had. But it did not take many days for this to .change. De 
Soto was cruel ; he captured the chiefs and made the Indians 
slaves, compelling them to carry his heavy burdens. If they 
rebelled or deserted they were tortured and killed. There- 
fore it was not strange that many battles were fought and 
many lives were lost. 

All this time no gold was discovered. The Indians con- 



FERDINAND DE SOTO. 



39 



tinually told stories of rich villages to the west. But when 
these settlements were reached, nothing of importance was 
found except a few pearls, which had been ruined by having 
holes bored through them. It was like following a will-o'- 




IHh, BURIAL OF DE SOTO 



the-wisp. Still they pushed on, their number daily growing 
smaller and the survivors weaker, ever hoping to find the 
fabled gold. 

Finally they reached a mighty river, the Mississippi, which 
means in the Indian tongue the "father of waters." This 
river they crossed with great difficulty, and they pushed on 
west — ever west. After nearly a year more of travel, even 
De Soto became discouraged. The expedition turned and 
sought the sea. The Mississippi was again reached, where 
De Soto became ill and died. Then, a panic seized his fol- 
lowers; they feared that,, now that their leader, whom the 
Indians supposed to be immortal, was gone, they would be 



40 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

attacked and killed. Therefore they deteTmined to conceal 
the death of De Soto from the Indians. 

This was no small task, as the Indians were skilled in all 
kinds of woodcraft. They would be able to detect the slight- 
est disturbance in leaf or twig, and a grave would quickly be 
discovered, no matter how skilfully concealed. One night a 
boat pushed out silently from the shore. When the deep 
water of the river was reached, the body of the intrepid 
leader was lifted over the side of the boat and lowered into 
the stream. Quickly it sank in the waters, with only a ripple 
to mark its resting-place. 

It was a sad end for the brave De Soto, who had left his 
ships so hopefully three years before. His misfortunes he 
brought upon himself. The Indians were ready to repay 
kindness with kindness. They were cruelly and deceitfully 
treated, and they returned it doublefold. 

De Soto's followers, discouraged and hopeless, succeeded 
in building a few small vessels. These were launched in the 
Mississippi River, and, fifteen months after the death of De 
Soto, reached Mexico. Out of the six hundred who set out 
from Tampa Bay, nearly half perished in this disastrous 
journey. 

Describe the interest that Spaniards felt in the new countries. 
Tell the story of De Soto's journey. 

Describe the character of the country through which he passed. 
Give an account of the death and burial of De vSoto. 

Was the desire for wealth sufficient to lead men to cross the ocean? 
Do you know of any recent cases where people have been " crazy 
to go" into some new country? How did it happen that John Ortiz 
was in America? Why were there " no roads"? What is meant by 
" fording a river"? Why did the Indians continually tell the Span- 
iards that there were " rich villages to the west"? 




CHAPTER V 

Sir Walter Raleigh 



1552-1618 



More than half a century after the voyages of Columbus an 
English boy was born, for whom the capital of North Carolina 
is named. His family had been illustrious for many genera- 
tions, and, though it had lost much of its possessions, it was 
still able to give young Walter Raleigh a fair start in life. 

After that, however, all that he accomplished was obtained 
by his own hard work. He was a soldier, fighting bravely 
in the civil wars in France. He was a sailor, leading in the 
overthrow of the famous vSpanish Armada. He was an orator, 
able to dispute with the great statesmen of his day. He was a 
courtier, the favorite of Queen Elizabeth. 

Raleigh was a m.an of commanding presence. He was six 
feet in height and remarkably well built. He was accus- 
tomed, like the other courtiers of Elizabeth, to set off his 
handsome face and striking form by dress of the richest ma- 
terial. Silks and velvets, embroidered with gems and gold, 
were his usual apparel. He possessed most charming man- 
ners and was a model of politeness. One day the queen, 
with her attendant courtiers, came to a muddy place in the 
road. Seeing that she hesitated to place her dainty slippers 



42 



FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



in the mud, Raleigh immediately "spread his new plush 
cloak on the ground, whereon the queen trod gently over, 
rewarding him afterward with many suits for his so free and 
seasonable tender of so fair a foot-cloth." 

Raleigh, however, was more than a mere idler about 
the court. Before he was thirty years of age he began to 

show an interest in Ameri- 
ca. Eighty years had passed 
since the voyages of Cabot 
gave England a claim to 
the Atlantic coast of Ameri- 
ca. Meanwhile, Spain had 
conquered Mexico and the 
West Indies, and had made 
a settlement at Saint Au- 
gustine in Florida. France 
had explored the coast and 
had tried to establish colo- 
nies. But England had ap- 
parently forgotten all about 
the new world. 

The time had come for 
a revival of English inter- 
est in America. Sir Francis 
Drake returned from his voyage around the world and gave 
an account of what he had seen of the unknown lands. 
Martin Frobisher sought a northwest passage around the 
new continent to Asia. Sir Humphrey Gilbert made two 
expeditions from England, and tried in vain to make a set- 
tlement in Newfoundland. A few of the more thoughtful 
as well as the more adventurous Englishmen began to per- 
ceive that a new England in America would greatly increase 




WHERE RALEIGH LANDED. 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 43 

the power of the old England acrOvSs the water. Among 
these statesmen was Walter Raleigh, the handsome, popular, 
brave courtier of Elizabeth. 

Raleigh was a younger brother of Sir Humphrey Gilbert 
and had taken part in his first expedition. Fortunately he 
did not accompany his brother in the second, or he might 
have lost his life in the same storm in which his brother 
perished. 

The death of Gilbert and the loss of his entire fortune did 
not lessen Raleigh's desire to build up an English home in 
the new world. He took up the work where his brother left 
it, and the next year fitted out two ships to explore the coast 
of America and choose a suitable place for a colony. 

The leaders of this expedition returned and reported that 
the Island of Roanoke, off the coast of what was later called 
Carolina, was well adapted for a settlement. There they had 
found a fertile soil, a delightful climate, and friendly In- 
dians. Queen Elizabeth knighted Raleigh for this expedi- 
tion, and directed that the new country be named, in her 
honor, Virginia. 

The next year {1585) Sir Walter sent out his first colony. 
What energy and courage were needed by the one hundred 
colonists, who left England in a fleet of seven small vessels! 
A voyage across the Atlantic did not then contain the terrors 
that it had in the time of Columbus, but the thought of a 
home in the wilds of an unknown land, thousands of miles 
from England, with an ocean between them and all their 
friends, must have been disheartening. But they sailed 
bravely across the waters, began at once to build their rude 
houses, and sent all their vessels back to England. 

Troubles arose at once. The friendly Indians of the year 
before began to show themselves hostile. They did not like 



44 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

the thought that these newcomers were taking the land that 
had been theirs. They were angry, and they had reason to 
be, at the way the white men treated them. 

Governor Ralph Lane had sent out an exploring party 
soon after the colonists arrived. On its return it was found 
that a silver cup, which one of the party had carried, was 
missing. Instantly they charged the red men with stealing 
it. Hastening back, they came to an Indian town from which 
all the inhabitants had fled. In retaliation for the loss of 
the cup the white men burned the whole town, with all the 
houses and stores of provisions. This foolish act was fol- 
lowed by a long series of injuries, until the red men plotted 
to massacre the entire colony. 

Lane and his little band discovered the plot and succeeded 
in defending themselves. But the constant fear of the In- 
dians and the unaccustomed hardships proved too much for 
the colonists. They missed their well-built houses at home, 
their wholesome food, and their soft beds. When Sir Fran- 
cis Drake sailed into the harbor in June, he Avas eagerly 
besought to take them home. The admiral consented, and 
Raleigh's first colony was abandoned. 

Governor Lane carried home with him samples of three 
of the products of the new world, which had hitherto been 
unknown in England — maize or Indian corn, white potatoes, 
and tobacco. Raleigh planted the potatoes on his estate in 
Ireland, where the root became popular. It has since been 
cultivated by the people of that island so persistently that it 
is now everywhere known as the Irish potato. 

Lane and Raleigh also introduced into Europe the habit 
of smoking. Every one knows the story of Raleigh's ser- 
vant, who, carrying his master a mug of ale, saw him for the 
first time sending forth whiffs of tobacco-smoke. Overcome 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 



45 



with fright, the man threw the ale in Raleigh's face and ran 
from the room, calling out that his master was on fire and 
would soon be consumed. 

Still anxious to extend the English domain, Raleigh sent 
out a larger colony the next year, under Captain John White. 
When the fleet reached Roanoke Island, it was found that all 
the houses of the previous 
settlement had been destroy- 
ed by the Indians. Where 
the village had been was now 
a melon-patch. 

Not a very pleasant wel- 
come for these strangers! 
New houses were soon built, 
however, and the colony at 
once settled down to its quiet 
life. But provisions and re- 
inforcements were necessary, 
and the governor sailed for 
England to seek them and to 
give a report of the colony. 

Governor White was very 
sorry to be compelled so early 
to leave the colony. He felt 
himself responsible for its 

welfare, and he was especially anxious because he left behind 
him a daughter, Mrs. Dare, and a little granddaughter. This 
girl was named Virginia, because she was the first English 
child born in the new land. She was but nine days old when 
her grandfather sailed out of sight of the colony. Anxiously 
did the governor look forward to a quick return from Eng- 
land. 




RALEIGH'S FRIGHTENED SERVANT TRYING 
TO EXTINGUISH HIS SMOKING MASTER. 



46 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

But England was at war with Spain. The Spanish Ar- 
mada, of nearly a hundred and fifty vessels, was preparing 
to make an attack upon the English. Raleigh, like all other 
true Englishmen, was devoting his energies to aid in ward- 
ing off the attack. The little band of exiles on Roanoke 







VIRGINIA DARE, THE FIRST WHITE GIRL BORN IN AMERICA, CARRIED OFF BY 

INDIANS. 



Island must wait a while. Two vessels, it is true, were sent 
to carry them supplies, but both met Spanish ships and were 
driven back to England. It was three years after Governor 
White sailed out of Roanoke Harbor before an English res- 
cue fleet arrived. 

The little settlement was nowhere to be seen. Scarcely 
any remains were found to indicate that white men had ever 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 47 

lived there. On the bark of one of the trees the letters 
C-R-O-A-T-A-N had been cut. This was intended to show 
where the colonists had gone. But where was "Croatan"? 
And where were the eighty-nine men, the seventeen women, 
and the little Virginia Dare? No one could tell then and no 
one can tell now. They were never found. They may have 
been killed by the red men, though perhaps they were adopt- 
ed into an Indian tribe. Thus perished the second colony. 

Raleigh was discouraged. He could not afford to send 
out more expeditions. He was engaged in other matters 
during the rest of his life. He spent many of his later years 
in prison, and finally was beheaded, because of the hatred of 
the new king, James I. Yet he lived long enough to see the 
first permanent English colony established on the James 
River, a few hundred miles from Roanoke Island. 

Tell the story of Raleigh: as a boy; as a courtier; as a sailor. 
Describe Raleigh's first colony; his second colony. 
Explain why English interest in the new world was awakened. 
Give an account of the loss of the cup; of the possible fate of the 
colonists. 

Why was the name Raleigh given to the capital of North Carolina 
rather than to that of some other State? Did Raleigh expect a reward 
when he kept the mud from the queen's slippers? What hope that 
Columbus had was still held by some people in Raleigh's time? Why 
was the voyage of Raleigh's colonists less dreaded than that of Colum- 
bus? Had the colonists any right to destroy the Indian town? Which 
of the three new plants found by Governor Lane has proved of the 
most value? 




lod.An P. 




CHAPTER VI 

John Smith 

1579-1631 

The failures of Gilbert and Raleigh taught the English 
people that it would not be an easy matter to establish a col- 
ony in the new world. Such expeditions were seen to be 
more expensive than one man could afford to undertake, even 
if he were a rich courtier, favored by the queen. Therefore 
but little more was done for many years, until another cen- 
tury had begun and another ruler had come to the throne of 
England. 

When the idea of colonization was again taken up, it was 
decided that several men, united into a company, would more 
likely be successful than a single adventurer. Accordingly, 
the new king, James I., gave a charter, which formed a few 
men into a company. To this Virginia Company was given 
the right to make settlements in the new world, to control 
and govern them, and to make all the profit it could out of 



JOHN SMITH, 



49 



them, if it would pay the king one-fifth of the gold and silver 
which might be obtained in its possessions. 

Nearly twenty years after the arrival of White and his 
band upon the shores of Roanoke Island, a fleet set sail from 
England, sent out by the Virginia Company. Leaving port 
in December, the three small vessels sailed south, along the 
coasts of France and Spain, to the 
Canary Isles, and then westward 
nearly in the track of Columbus to 
the West Indies. 

From here the voyage was 
northward. A severe storm was 
encountered, and, being at the 
mercy of the wind, Captain New- 
port was unable to bring his ships 
to Roanoke Island, as he had in- 
tended. As the fleet sailed into 
Chesapeake Bay, the headlands 
on either side were named Cape 
Henry and Cape Charles, in honor 
of the two sons of King James. 

The pleasure of the immigrants 
with the quiet waters into which 
they had come, after the trials of 

the four months' voyage, has been commemorated in the 
name of Old Point Comfort. Continuing their sail up a 
broad river, which they called the James, they chose a little 
peninsula for a settlement, and named it Jamestown. 

Thus was begun the first permanent English settlement 

in America, in May, 1607. By the first stroke of the axe to 

fell trees for the houses of the little village, the colony of 

Virginia was started, the first step was taken in forming 

4 




WHERE JOHN SMITH EXPLORED. 



50 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

what was to be the United States of America. The little 
band of colonists at Jamestown succeeded in doing what 
no earlier company of Englishmen had accomplished. They 
kept the colony alive ; they did not abandon it ; and they pre- 
vented their own destruction by the Indians. 

That success came to them seems almost a miracle. Of 
the one hundred and five men, for there were no women, 
nearly fifty were "gentlemen," unaccustomed to do any work 
with their hands; twelve only were laborers, and these were 
mostly body-servants of the gentlemen ; four were carpenters, 
one a blacksmith, one a bricklayer, and one a mason. Prob- 
ably very few had had any experience in cutting trees ; not 
any were accustomed to cultivating the land ; there were no 
bricks for the bricklayer and the mason ; and three of the 
carpenters had but partly learned their trade. 

The beautiful month of Ma}^ saw their arrival in V^irginia, 
the best season of the year in that climate. But soon the 
warm June came, then the hot July, and the sultry August. 
The peninsula of Jamestown was hardly more than a swamp ; 
many fell ill with malaria, which the extreme heat greatly 
increased. Before the cooler weather of autumn arrived, 
nearly half of the entire colony had perished. 

Had it not been for the courage and enterprise of one 
man, Jamestown would have met with a fate similar to that 
of Roanoke Island. John Smith proved to be the right man 
in the right place. He knew what was necessary to be done, 
he saw clearly what should be avoided ; he was able to con- 
duct the colony through its trials, where others had failed. 
Always cheerful, always ready in an emergency, never cast 
down by any ill-fortune, John Smith saved the Virginia 
colony. 

This young man, for he was less than thirty years of age, 



JOHN SMITH. 



51 



had already passed through more dangers and disasters than 
often came to men in a whole lifetime, even in the heroic 
days of old. While scarcely more than a boy, he had fought 
bravely in Holland. Afterward he had traveled through 
Europe, even into Egypt, from which country he returned to 
enter the war against the Turks, in Hungary. Here he won 
great renown in many single combats, but he was finally 
wounded and captured. Sold as a slave in Constantinople, 




JOHN SMITH EXPLORING THE RIVER. 



he was put at the hardest kinds of labor, until, rendered des- 
perate by his cruel treatment, he succeeded in escaping. He 
traveled through the dense forests of Russia, pushed his 
way across Europe, and, alone and worn with fatigue, 
reached England, just in time to join the expedition to Vir- 
ginia 

This was the man who had thoroughly learned human 
nature; he could control the colonists, even in cases of rebel- 
lion ; he could fill the Indians with a fear of himself. He 
also realized that food was of more value to starving men 
than gold. John Smith guided in building the houses; he 



52 



FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



taught the colonists how to till the soil ; he obtained the 
much-needed food from the Indians ; and he kept the dis- 
heartened settlers from sailing for England until winter set 
in. Then heat and disease were gone, and a more hopeful, 
cheerful spirit filled all hearts. 

When the Virginia Company sent out the colonists, it laid 
three commands upon them : one was to seek Raleigh's " lost 

colony" ; the second was to find 
gold ; and the third was to 
search for a northwest passage 
through America to the Pacific 
Ocean. Although Smith real- 
ized that neither of these ob- 
jects could be accomplished 
easily, yet he was more than 
willing to set out on any explor- 
ing expedition. 

He rowed up the Chicka- 
hominy River as far as his boats 
could go, proving that the Pa- 
cific could not be reached in that 
way. He continued his jour- 
ney into the country and was 
captured by the Indians. He 
saved his life for a time by showing them a pocket com- 
pass. They were greatly impressed with his genius, and 
were filled with wonder when he conveyed a message to his 
friends at Jamestown by sending them a written letter. 

The Indians determined to send their captive to the great 
chief, Powhatan, at his royal residence near the present city 
of Richmond. There a council of war was held, which de- 
cided to put Smith to death. Pocahontas, the twelve-year- 




INDIANS WONDER AT SMITH'S WRITING. 



JOHN SMITH. 



53 



old daughter of Powhatan, throwing her arms around the 
neck of the captive, begged her father to spare his life. The 
chief could refuse nothing to his beloved child, and vSmith, 




THE WEDDING OF PUCAHONl'AS. 



instead of suffering death, was treated with the utmost friend- 
ship. 

Pocahontas continued to be a friend to Smith and the colo- 
nists. She often conveyed them food in the hard times that 



54 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

followed. Five years later she helped to make a firmer band 
of union between the Indians and the white men by her 
marriage with John Rolfe, an Englishman of high family. 
When, a few years afterward, the Lady Rebecca, as Poca- 
hontas had been christened at her marriage, visited England, 
she won the hearts of all who met her. Unhappily, the se- 
vere climate of the British Isles proved more than her south- 
ern blood could endure, and she died just as she was to sail 
again for America, with her husband and infant son. 

Captain Smith continued to be the life of the colony until 
he was severely wounded by an accidental explosion and 
found it necessary to return to England for the proper surgi- 
cal treatment. Meanwhile he had explored Chesapeake Bay, 
visiting the harbor of what is now Baltimore and sailing up 
the Potomac River past the site of Washington ; he also made 
an accurate map of the entire region. He had so conducted 
the colony, with its newly arrived reinforcements, that but 
seven died the second year. Recovering from the accident. 
Smith, a few years later, explored the coast of New England 
and named many of the capes and harbors, among them Ply- 
mouth, the site of the second English settlement in America. 

John Smith has rightly been called the " Father of Vir- 
ginia," but for all his labors and exertions he received not 
one cent in payment; not one foot of land, not the house 
he himself had built, not the field his own hands had planted, 
nor any reward but the applause of his conscience and the 
world. 

After the departure of Smith the Jamestown colony began 
to lose ground again, and in six months the four hundred and 
ninety persons in the settlement had been reduced to sixty. 
Three years after the first arrival at Jamestown the wretched 
survivors embarked in four small vessels and permitted the 



JOHN SMITH. 5 5 

tide to carry them down the river, for they had decided to 
give up the colony and to sail for England. 

Fortunately, the next morning, before they reached Point 
Comfort, the fleet of the new governor, Lord Delaware, was 
met. This contained more immigrants and supplies, and the 
colony was not abandoned. Reaching Jamestown again, the 
colonists, new and old, assembled in the little chsrch and 
gave thanks to God for His goodness. The hardest times in 
Virginia were past. More than a century and a half later the 
colony became the State of Virginia, the largest of the origi- 
nal thirteen United States. 

State the result of Raleigh's failures. 
Describe the voyage of Captain Newport. 
Give an account of the character of the colonists. 
Tell the story of John Smith : as a young man ; as a leader in Vir- 
ginia; among the Indians; during his later life. 
Tell the story of Pocahontas. 

How much anoney do you suppose the kings of England have re- 
ceived from Virginia as " one-fifth of the gold and silver" obtained in 
that colony? What did the " gentlemen" seek in Virginia? Did the 
Englishmen in the seventeenth century hope to find the same things 
that Columbus did? How did the pocket compass save Smith's life? 
Smith governed Virginia well ; did he do anything else for his fellow- 
men? Do you know of any other men besides John Smith who did 
not receive proper reward for the good which they did? 



/-/fanms^ 



SIGNATURE OF KING JAMES I. 




—A ■ FILGFylM-COVERHOR.- 



CHAPTER VII 



William Bradford 



1588-1657 



The same year that saw the arrival of Captain Newport 
and his little fleet in Chesapeake Bay and the settlement of 
the colony of Virginia (1607), witnessed also a sad scene upon 
the eastern coast of England. Just as a vessel was about to 
sail, some government officers boarded it and carried the pas- 
sengers to prison. After a month of confinement nearly all 
were set free, on condition that they would return to their 
homes at Scrooby. 

What had these men and women and children done that 
they should be thus imprisoned? Nothing that would be 
called a crime to-day. They were merely trying to leave 
England for some country where they could worship God in 
the way that they thought was right. They were a little 
band of earnest Christians, who were called Separatists, be- 
cause they wished to hold separate services of their own. 
They believed that the Church of England had made mis- 
takes, and they wished to serve God as seemed best to them. 

Queen Elizabeth had tried during her entire reign to 
strengthen the Church of England. She thought it wrong 



WILLIAM BRADFORD. 



57 



for any to stay away from service or to meet together to wor- 
ship by themselves. Therefore she forbade all such meet- 
ings, and directed that those who attended them and even 
those who did not attend the regular service should be pun- 
ished. 

When James I. came to the throne he was even more 
harsh than Elizabeth had been. The Separatists were more 
severely treated than be- 
fore. What seems especi- 
ally strange to us, the king 
not only refused to permit 
them to worship as they 
pleased, but he also would 
not allow them to leave 
England and seek a coun- 
try where they would be 
granted religious freedom. 

In spite of the laws 
against emigration, how- 
ever, many tried t^ flee 
across the Channel to Hol- 
land. It was while thus 
attempting to escape, that 
these Scrooby Separatists 
were captured and sent 
home. They were not dis- 
couraged, but tried again the next year and succeeded, 
after great suffering, in reaching Amsterdam, a city in Hol- 
land. 

Among these exiles was a lad, about eighteen years of 
age, named William Bradford. Six years before this time 
the boy had been led to join the little Separatist body at 




WHERE THE PILGRIMS AND THE PURITANS 
SETTLED. 



58 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

Scrooby. As he grew older he became an earnest upholder 
of the beliefs of the small denomination. He was a scholar 
and was familiar with those studies which require considera- 
ble thought, such as the ancient languages, philosophy, and 
theology. He was fitted to be a leader in a religious move- 
ment, and, though still young, he was prominent very early 
among the exiles in Amsterdam. 

Soon the little band removed to Leyden, another city of 
Holland. Here these wanderers began to call themselves 
Pilgrims, because they did not seem to have any permanent 
home. In Leyden, with their beloved pastor, John Robin- 
son, they lived for nearly eleven years. 

These English people, in the strange Dutch land, of 
course had no easy task to find means of support. But as 
weavers, masons, carpenters, hat makers, and tailors, they 
came to raise a competent and comfortable living, but with 
hard and continued labor. 

After some years, however, they began to question among 
themselves if everything was as it should be. They were 
English people, and believed in English methods and cus- 
toms. Was it not likely that their sons and daughters, grow- 
ing up among the Dutch, would learn Dutch ways instead of 
English? Perhaps they might even marry among the people 
of Holland. 

Consequently their thoughts were turned toward the pos- 
sibility of settling in America. There they would be free 
from English punishments and also from Dutch customs! 
There they could worship God as they thought right and at 
the same time carry the Bible to the Indians. Accordingly, 
for two or three years, they tried to make arrangements with 
the Virginia Company to send them across the ocean. At 
last, in 1620, an agreement was reached, and, in the middle 



WILLIAM BRADFORD. 



59 



of summer, the vessel Speedwell s,2L\\e6. from Delft-Haven, the 
port of Leyden. 

The Speedwell was too small to carry half of the members 
of the Leyden church ; therefore Elder William Brewster was 
sent with the colonists, and Pastor John Robinson remained 
in Holland with the majority, who could not then go. The 
little vessel sailed to Southampton, England, where it was 
joined by the Mayflozver, 

with other Separatists ^^^#5- ^ -= - ; ^ ■■---'''~''^^::'^''% 
who had remained in [ " 
England. The two ves- 
sels left Southampton, 
but were twice compelled 
to return to English har- 
bors, because the Speed- 
well W3.& lesikmg. Finally 
it was decided to use the 
Mayfloivcr alone, and, 
early in September, a 
little band of one hun- 
dred men, women, and 
children left the har- 
bor of Plymouth, Eng- 
land, for their stormy voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. 

More than two months passed before land was seen, which 
proved to be a part of Cape Cod. The Pilgrims had one of 
John Smith's maps of the New England coast, and therefore 
knew where they were. They anchored in the harbor of 
Provincetown, and at once thanked God "who had brought 
them over the vast and furious ocean and delivered them from 
all the perils and miseries thereof, again to set their feet on 
the firm and stable earth." 




THE "MAYFLOWER" IN WINTER HARBOR IN 
PLYMOUTH. 



6o 



FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



11^': 






— ' 




^ 


^''-'"7^ 


V ^ 


-'- y 




' 




IN A PILGRIM'S HOME. 



While the Mayflower lay in the harbor an agreement was 
drawn up and signed by forty-one men. This was the 
''Mayflower Compact," which pledged the signers to obey the 

government which it 

ll'?"': i,;, ,12L;^ , ^ Jt- ^^ f ^^ established. Then 

irt': i ' \wmmM^IMs^M^\ , I I Pli the voyagers elected 

John Carver gover- 
nor. 

Nearly a month 
was spent in explor- 
ing the shores of 
Cape Cod Bay, in order to find a suitable spot for the settle- 
ment. Finally a party of twelve Pilgrims landed at the spot 
marked on Smith's map as Plymouth. This took place on 
December 21st, 1620 — a day since celebrated as Forefather's 
Day. The explorers chose Plymouth as the site of the col- 
ony, and the 3Iayflower was brought across into that harbor. 
The Virginia colony had commenced its settlement just 
at the beginning of a hot and sickly summer; the Plymouth 
colonists arrived at the 
beginning of a cold and 
dreary New England 
winter. The Jamestown 
settlers lacked provi- 
sions during that first 
summer; the Plymouth 
band had not sufficient 
food to keep them alive through that first winter. The 
hundred Virginians in the summer of 1607 decreased to about 
fifty before autumn ; the hundred Pilgrims in the Decem- 
ber of 1620 were but about fifty at the beginning of the 
next summer. Thus the winter hardships of the New Eng- 




A SPYING INDIAN. 



WILLIAM BRADFORD. 



6i 



land colony were as severe as those of the first summer in 
Virginia. 

Among the deaths that spring was that of Governor Car- 
ver. The colonists at once elected young William Bradford 
as his successor. Year 
after year the Plymouth 
colony chose him as gov- 
ernor, even to the time 
of his death. During 
the thirty-six years of 
his life in America, 
Bradford was governor 
thirty-one. To his wise 
government was d ii e 
much of the success of 
the colony, which slowly 
but surely grew after the 
first winter. 

As was the case every- 
where among the new 
settlements in America, 
one of the greatest dan- 
gers lay in the hostility of the Indians. Fortunately for 
the Pilgrims, but few red men lived in the neighborhood of 
Plymouth when the colony was founded. This was one of 
the main reasons for the years of peace with the Indians 
that followed the landing of the colonists. Besides, the 
Pilgrims treated the Indians in a kindly spirit and yet 
showed a firm determination to protect themselves. 

Early in the spring of 162 1 an Indian named Samoset vis- 
ited the Plymouth colony ; he was received with kindness 
and sent away with a few presents. Soon he returned with 




CAPTAIN STANDISH RECEIVING THE CHALLENGE. 



62 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

Squanto, another Indian, who could speak some English, as 
he had been captured and taken to England years before by 
a party exploring the New England coast. Squanto was of 
considerable assistance to the colony, teaching them how to 
plant the Indian corn and also giving information concern- 
ing the neighboring Indian tribes. 

The next autumn a tribe of Indians, called the Narragan- 
setts, thought that they would frighten the Pilgrims; so they 
sent them a " bundle of arrows tied about with a great snake 
skin." The colonists, though desiring peace, were not cow- 
ardly; they immediately returned the skin filled with bullets. 
Then they began to strengthen their fort and to place them- 
selves in readiness. But the Indians did not dare make an 
attack, and for more than fifty years, until King Philip's 
War, Plymouth colony was free from Indian wars. 

Thus the Pilgrims found their permanent home. Under 
the wise government of William Bradford, guided by the 
true counsels of Elder Brewster, and led in military affairs 
by the brave Miles Standish, Plymouth colony quietly and 
steadily grew. After seventy years of separate existence. 
New Plymouth was joined to the Province of Massachusetts 
Bay, and to-day it is a part of the State of Massachusetts. 

State what the Separatists desired. 

Give an account of the arrest of the passengers. 

Tell the story of William Bradford: as a young man; in his Leyden 
home ; on the ocean ; at Plymouth. 

Describe the Mayflower Compact. 

Tell how Squanto aided the Pilgrims; how the Indians threatened 
them. 

Do we have religious freedom to-day? Are any religious meetings 
forbidden now in our country? How did the Pilgrims go from Scrooby 
to Amsterdam? How did they go from Amsterdam to Leyden? The 
Pilgrims were afraid that they would become like the Dutch ; was this 
probable? Do immigrants to the United States grow to be like the 
rest of us? 




;^^^y 









CHAPTER VIII 



John Winthrop 



1588-1649 

The Separatists, a few of whom came to Plymouth, were 
not the only English people who did not accept all the doc- 
trines of the Church of England. A much larger number, 
called Puritans, still went to church with the rest of the Eng- 
lish people. These were not at first persecuted, but, as they 
became more numerous and important, trouble arose between 
them and the king. When this quarrel began some of the 
leaders proposed to establish a colony for the Puritans, like 
the Pilgrim settlement at Plymouth. 

A fishing-hamlet had been started at Cape Ann (1623) 
a few years after the landing of the Pilgrims, with Roger 
Conant in charge. The cape was bleak and rocky and not 
easily cultivated, and the settlement was a failure. One day, 
however, when Conant was paddling his canoe along the 
shore, he found a fertile piece of land running out into the sea 
between two little rivers. He thought that this peninsula, 
which the Indians called Naumkeag, would be a good place 
for a settlement, and in the spring (1626) he and fourteen 
companions moved over from Cape Ann and established 
themselves at Naumkeag. 



64 



FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



Conant wrote for aid to a Puritan leader in Dorchester, Eng- 
land, named John White; he needed more colonists and sup- 
plies. Two years later John Endicott was sent over to Naum- 
keag with a hundred settlers, having a grant of all the land 
between Plymouth and New Hampshire. This latter colony 

had been settled at 
Portsmouth and Dover 
the year that Cape Ann 
was first used as a fish- 
ing-station (1623). 

Gov ernor Endicott 
brought over from 
England some pear- 
trees, and one of them 
is still living and blos- 
soming in the town of 
Danvers. What a long 
life for a pear - tree 
— not far from three 
centuries! What 
changes that tree has 
witnessed ! If it could 
think and talk, what a 
tale it could tell! A 
pretty story is told 
about a young couple, 
who, walking home one Sunday after church service, stopped 
under the pear-tree. The young man picked from the tree a 
double stem having two blossoms on it. He asked the young 
lady if she would take one anti let him keep the other. She 
consented and soon after became his wife. He was a min- 
ute-man and went to the battle of Lexington. 




*)*^~:x 



GOVERNOR ENDICOTT'S PEAK-TRtE- 
SAW. 



'^^f^ 



ONE THING IT 



JOHN WINTIIROP. 65 

The next year, Endicoti was rejoiced by the arrival of six 
vessels and four hundred colonists at Naumkeag, or Salem, 
as it was from this time called. A part of the newcomers 
remained at Salem, while others built a town on the penin- 
sula of Charlestown. The next spring (1630) four more ves- 
sels sailed into Salem harbor, and before the year was over 
thirteen others arrived, bringing in all, that year, nearly fif- 
teen himdred colonists. Some remained at Salem, others 
went to Charlestown, and others still built new villages, most 
of them near the present city of Boston. 

The new governor, John Winthrop, came out in the 
spring of 1630. He was a little more than forty years old, 
and was an earnest, sincere Puritan. For several years he 
had felt certain that trouble was coming in England, and he 
was willing to leave home and friends behind him, in order 
to found a place of refuge for the Puritans. For the next 
nineteen years, until his death, he was the most important 
leader in the colony of Massachusetts Bay. 

Winthrop left his family in England when he .sailed for 
the new colony, and soon after his arrival he wrote one of his 
loving letters to his wife in the mother-country. " Blessed 
be the Lord, our good God and merciful Father, that yet hath 
preserved me in life and health. We had a long and trou- 
blesome passage, but the Lord made it safe and easy to us; 
and though we have met with many and great troubles, yet 
He hath pleased to uphold us." 

We can learn from Winthrop's letters something of the 
discomforts which the settlers suffered. A week later he 
wrote to his wife Margaret: "Let us join in praising our 
merciful God that He upholds our hearts in all our troubles. 
And howsoever our fare be but coarse, in respect of what we 
formerly had (peas, puddings, and fish being our ordinary 
5 



66 



FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



diet), yet He makes it sweet and wholesome to us. There- 
fore be not discouraged, my dear wife, for 1 see no cause to 
repent of our coming hither, and thou seest that God can 
bring safe hither even the tenderest women and the young- 
est children." 

Winthrop proposed that his family should come to New 
England the next summer, and he sent many directions as 




MKS WINTHROP PRKPAklNLr TO COME TO AMERICA. 



to what they should bring. " Remember to come well fur- 
nished with linen, woollen, some more bedding, brass, and 
pewter. Be sure to be warm clothed and to have store of 
fresh provisions, meal, eggs, butter, oatmeal, peas, and 
fruits. Thou must be sure to bring no more company than 
so many as shall have full provision for a year and a half, 
for though the earth here be very fertile, yet there must be 
time and means to raise it ; if we have corn enough we may 
live plentifully." 



JOHN WINTHROP. 6/ 

Before Mrs. Winthrop arrived in the colony, the governor 
had built a new town and made it the capital. Shawmut, or 
Trimountain, as the English at first called it, lay almost 
entirely surrounded by water, across which were the settle- 
ments of Charlestown, Newtown, Roxbury, and Dorchester. 
Here lived one man, William Blackstone by name, near a 
spring of clear, cold water. By his advice Winthrop chose 
this peninsula to be his home, and named it Boston, in honor 
of the old town of Boston on the eastern shore of England, 
from which many of the settlers had come. 

The colony was soon well established, and during the next 
twenty years many thousand Puritans left England to try a 
life in a new world. Though the civil war in England for a 
time put the Puritans at the head of the government, the 
young king, Charles II., was placed upon the throne thirty 
years after the arrival of Winthrop in Boston. 

From this time on, the king opposed the Puritans in every 
way, especially those of Massachusetts. The dislike of the 
king for the colony and of the colony for the king continued 
until Massachusetts Bay joined with the other colonies in an 
opposition to the mother-country, which resulted in their in- 
dependence and gave us the United States of America. 

Give an account of the Puritans in England. 

Tell the story of Roger Conant; of Governor Endicott; of the set- 
tlers of 1630; of the founding of Boston. 
Describe Winthrop's letters. 

The Puritans wished to make the church better; do you see any- 
thing in their name that shows this? The reason is given why the 
settlement at Cape Ann was a failure ; what does this show to be most 
necessary in a new colony? Winthrop calls his food " coarse"; was it 
not good? Why did Winthrop ask his wife to bring " fresh provisions"? 
Why was Boston first called Trimountain? 




ROGER \A/IU.IAMS DRIVEN OUT 



CHAPTER IX 

Williams and Hooker 

1599-1683 1586-1647 



Roger Williams, a young minister from England, ar- 
rived at Boston a few months after Winthrop. He was of a 
good family and was born in London , his father was James 
Williams, a merchant tailor, and his mother's name was 
Alice. Young Williams was a minister of the church at vSa- 
lem for a little while, and then went to Plymouth, where he 
preached for two years and more. After this he returned to 
Salem, and was their minister for about two years and a half. 
During this time the government of Massachusetts Bay be- 
came bitterly opposed to Williams because of certain opinions 
which he held and preached. 

Williams thought that the Massachusetts people ought to 
buy their lands from the Indians. He said that the king's 
gift was not enough, because the king did not own the land. 
He also taught that the government should punish for civil 
offences only. That is, Williams held that in religious 
matters every one ought to be permitted to think and decide 
for himself. 

He was brought before the court, but he would not 
change. The court then passed a sentence of banishment, 



WILLIAMS AND HOOKER. 



69 



ordering him to "depart out of this jurisdiction." In Janu- 
ary, 1636, Williams left Salem, after bidding his wife and 
children good-by, and, with a staff in his hand and a pack 
upon his back, he began a long and perilous journey through 
the deep snows of the wilderness. Which way he went is 
not known, but we may suppose that on the first day, go- 
ing around Boston oa its west- 
ern side, he reached Natick, 
where he found friendly In- 
dians who gave him a rest- 
ing-place in their wigwam 
over night. 

Perhaps on the next day 
he made a short journey to 
Ponkapoag, in the present 
town of Canton, where some 
friendly Indians resided . 
Think of him as he pushed 
on through the snow to a 
place near Taunton, hoping 
there to find lodgings with 
other Indians whom he knew. 

But the snows were deep and the weather cold, the way was 
long, and night overtook him in the wilderness. 

It may be that, finding a hollow tree, blown over by the 
wind, he crawled into it and during the night got such 
snatches of sleep as would come to him in his narrow bed- 
room upon so hard a bed. Finally, reaching the friendly 
Indians near Taunton, he may have spent a night with them, 
and then, on the day following, have gone on to his old friend, 
Massasoit, at Sowams, which is now the town of Warren, in 
Rhode Island. 




FIRST CHURCH AT SALEM WHERE WILLIAMS 
PREACHED (STILL STANDING). 



70 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



Here Williams remained for three months or more, mak- 
ing his home with Massasoit, but visiting the neighboring 
Indians from place to place. When the springtime came on 
some of his friends joined him, and Williams looked about for 
the best place to make a settlement. In a small canoe he 

crossed the Seekonk River 
with five companions. At 
Slate Rock, which is on 
the east side of the city of 
Providence, he was met 
by friendly Indians, who 
greeted him with the wel- 
come, " What cheer, Ne- 
top, what cheer!" This 
means, " How do you do, 
good friend, how do you 
do?" 

Williams paddled 
around the point of land 
and made a settlement 
near a beautiful spring of 
water. Here was begun 
a new settlement, a new 
town, a new colony, and 
one of the thirteen original United States. Others soon 
joined him, and a government was established by a written 
agreement, which read as follows: "We, whose names are 
here underwritten, do promise to subject ourselves to all 
such orders or agreements as shall be made for the public 
good of the body, in an orderly way, by the major consent 
of the present inhabitants and such others whom they shall 
admit unto the same — only in civil things.'" 




ROGER WILLIAMS MEETING FRIENDLY INDIANS. 



WILLIAMS AND HOOKER. 71 

"Only in civil things" means that the public laws shall 
not interfere with a man's religious belief. Here, first in the 
whole world, was established a government upon the princi- 
ple of full religious liberty. From that time till the present, 
Rhode Island has been noted for religious freedom. Roger 
Williams, therefore, deserves the title of " the great apostle 
of religious freedom." 

Two years after Roger Williams came to Boston, Thomas 
Hooker, another minister, arrived. Within six weeks after 
he had landed he was chosen pastor of the church at New- 
town, now Cambridge. Hooker was a man of great ability and 
a very attractive preacher. He at once took high rank among 
the learned men of Massachusetts, interesting himself in all 
the important political and religious movements of the colony. 

Hooker did not agree with Winthrop. He believed that 
all the people ought to take part in the government, while 
Winthrop thought that a large part of them were unfit to 
govern. Winthrop's idea favored an aristocracy, a govern- 
ment by a few, the better people; Hooker thought the gov- 
ernment should be a democracy, a government by all the 
people. 

Hooker did not stop to quarrel with Winthrop, but, a few 
months after Williams had gone to Providence (1636), he, 
with a great company, comprising a large part of the inhabi- 
tants of the three towns, Cambridge, Dorchester, and Water- 
town, left the Bay Colony and set out on a long and difficult 
journey to the Connecticut River. 

What a journey that was from Boston to Hartford! 
Through a trackless wilderness, across streams, they trav- 
eled, driving their cattle before them and living during the 
whole journey as best they could upon the milk of their cows 
and whatever they could find upon the way. 



72 



FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



Three years later the Connecticut settlers adopted a 
"Body of Fundamental Laws," doubtless drawn up by 
Hooker. 

The adoption of this document, and the founding of their 







hooker's expedition to CONNECTICUT. 



government upon it, is the first case in the history of the 
world where a tvrittcn constitution, which established and put 
in operation a new government, was framed and adopted by 
the people. It gave equal rights to all citizens, and prom- 
ised freedom and protection to all under the laws which the 
people should adopt. 

Roger Williams and Thomas Hooker must be considered 
among the foremost men of their age. They laid the real 
foundations of American liberty. 

Four of the six States afterward forming New England 
were now settled. After a time Plymouth was united to 
the Bay Colony, and the two thus brought together made the 
colony of Massachusetts. Providence Colony united with 



WILLIAMS AND HOOKER. 



73 



Newport Colony, and received a charter from Charles II. 
Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield for a time formed the 
Connecticut River Colony, while settlements about New 
Haven made the New Haven Colony. At a later date these 
two colonies were united and became the Colony of Con- 
necticut. 

Give an account of Williams' early life. 

State the trouble between Massachusetts and Williams. 

Describe his possible wanderings. 

Give an account of the founding of Providence. 

Explain what is meant by " religious freedom." 

State why Hooker left Massachusetts Bay. 

Describe the journey and its results. 

Was Williams right in his ideas about the lands? Was he right in 
his belief in religious freedom? How did Williams know the Indians 
at Taunton? Williams once wa-ote that he was " tossed for fourteen 
weeks, not knowing what bed or bread did mean"; where do you sup- 
pose he spent most of that time? Why was the city which Williams 
founded called Providence? What do you understand by a " trackless 
wilderness"? What were the four New England States? How many 
New England colonies were there at first? 




ON NAKkAGANStlT BAY. 




Peter Stuyvesant 



1602-1682 

The same year that Pastor Robinson and the Pilgrims 
moved from one city in Holland to another (1609), the Dutch 
East India Company sent out Henry Hudson, an English- 
man, in a vessel called the Half- Moon, to search for a nearer 
passage to Asia. Hudson sailed from Holland in the month 
of April, and reached the cold waters north of Russia so early 
in the season that masses of ice and broken icebergs prevented 
his farther advance. 

He then decided to seek a western passage, as he could not 
go east, and he turned his vessel toward Greenland. He 
passed along Newfoundland, and continued southward along 
the coast of America, seeking for some strait or passage into 
the land which might lead through to the Pacific Ocean. At 
last he reached a point opposite the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. 
Not caring to visit the two-year-old colony at Jamestown, 
Hudson sailed north again, made the first visit to Delaware 
Bay, and cast anchor in New York Harbor. 

For the first time Europeans viewed the spot where now 
stands Greater New York, one of the largest cities in the 
world. For the first tim^e a vessel sailed up the river past the 



PETER STUYVESANT. 



75 



Palisades and the Highlands, almost to the head of navigation 
where the city of Albany now is situated. For the first time 
the Indians on the banks of this river looked upon a vessel 
bearing sails, and, filled with curiosity, they flocked to the 
Half -Moon in great numbers. 

To this river Hudson gave his own name. Two months 
earlier Samuel de Champlain had gone south from Quebec, and 




HUDSON SAILING UP THE RIVER. 



named for himself the great lake separating New York 
from Vermont. So these two men, one in the employ of the 
Dutch and the other sent out by France, began the explora- 
tion of the great region which is now the State of New York. 
Hudson entered from the south, and Champlain from 



76 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

the north. They came within a hundred miles of each 
other. 

Hudson returned to Holland and reported the results of 
his voyage. He had found neither the northeast nor the 
northwest passage to India, but he had discovered the Hudson 
River. He told the Dutch people about the fine harbor and 
the fertile country ; he stated that the Indians were kindly, 
and that the woods were filled with fur-bearing animals ; and 
he described the grandeur and beauty of the scenery. 

Because of the voyage of Hudson in the Half-Moon, the 
Dutch claimed the entire territory between the Connecti- 
cut and the Delaware rivers. To this country they gave 
the name of New Netherland. Forts and trading-posts 
were built (1614), one on the island of Manhattan, another 
on the Hudson River near Albany, and a third on the Dela- 
ware River. Three years after the Pilgrims sailed for Amer- 
ica, fifty families arrived in the Dutch colony (1623), the 
larger part of whom settled at New Amsterdam and the rest 
at Fort Orange or Albany. 

A little later the governor, Peter Minuit, bought the en- 
tire island of Manhattan from the Indians for the small sum 
of twenty-four dollars. 

The Dutch did not always use the best judgment in the 
choice of the governors who were sent over to take charge of 
the colony. Disputes arose continually between the gover- 
nors and the great land-owners, or " patroons." The Indians 
were often harshly treated, and they in turn murdered the 
Dutch. Yet, little by little, the colony grew, until finally a 
governor arrived who succeeded in placing it on a firm footing. 

Peter Stuyvesant was forty-five years of age when he was 
given the charge of New Netherland. While a young man 
he had entered the military service of Holland and had 



PETER STUYVESANT. 



71 



served loyally and faithfully, losing a leg in an attack upon a 
Portuguese fort. He was a proud man, with an overbearing 
temper which could bear no opposition. He believed that a 
governor should have absolute power, as is shown by his an- 
swer to citizens who brought complaints against the former 
governor. He haughtily 
said : " It is treason to 
petition against one's 
magistrates, whether 
there be cause or not." 

In spite of his temper 
and his belief in his own 
absolute power, Peter 
Stuyvesant proved him- 
self well able to manage 
the affairs of the colony. 
The greatest danger to 
be feared was from the 
Indians. Stuyvesant for- 
bade the sale of liquor or 
firearms to the red men, 
and carefully considered 

their welfare in all his dealings with them. He succeeded 
in making the Indians his friends, and perhaps thereby 
saved his colony from destruction. 

He next turned his attention to promoting the well-being 
of the colonists. He established a system of schools ; he built 
a market and began a series of annual cattle-fairs ; he advised 
the building of better houses and taverns, and made New 
Amsterdam almost a model town. He enforced a careful 
observance of the Sabbath, but yielded religious tolerance 
to all persons. 




STUYVESANT AND TlllC PETITIONERS. 



78 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

As a result of his wise direction we read that: "The 
colony increased ; children swarmed in every village ; 
new modes of activity were devised ; lumber was shipped 
to France; the whale pursued off the coast; the vine, the 
mulberry, planted ; flocks of sheep as well as of cattle were 
multiplied. 

"'This happily situated province,' said its inhabitants, 
' may become the granary of our Fatherland; should our 
Netherlands be wasted by grievous wars, it will offer our 
countrymen a safe retreat; by God's blessing we shall in a 
few years become a mighty people,' " 

In the midst of its prosperity the colony of New Nether- 
land continually quarrelled with its neighbors. West and 
south of the Delaware River lay the little settlement of New 
Sweden, Queen Christina of Sweden had sent out a colony 
under the lead of the Dutchman, Peter Minuit (1638). Min- 
uit bought land of the Indians on the west bank of the Dela- 
ware River and built Fort Christiana, where the city of Wil- 
mington now stands. 

The Dutch were angr)' at the coming of the Swedes, but 
they were too weak at the time to oppose them in any wa)'' 
except by words. After the arrival of Stuyvesant as gover- 
nor, however, the Dutch became much stronger and grew to 
despise the little Swedish colony. Finally Stuyvesant built 
Fort Casimir, on the western bank of the Delaware, within 
five miles of Fort Christiana, and within the territory which 
the Swedes had bought from the Indians. 

The quarrel now became something more than words. 
The Swedes made an attack upon Fort Casimir and captured 
it. The next year Stuyvesant sailed from New Amsterdam, 
with six vessels and seven hundred men, to punish the rash 
people of New Sweden. He not only recaptured Fort Casi- 



PETER STUYVESANT. 



79 



mir, but he also took Fort Christiana, and New Sweden 
ceased to exist as a separate colony. 

New Netherland had now become apparently a well- 
established colony. It claimed all the territory of the pres- 
ent States of New York, New Jersey, and Delaware, and 
also the western bank of the Delaware River, in Pennsyl- 
vania. Suddenly the power of Stuyvesant and the Dutch 








THE ENGLISH FLEET APPEARING AT NEW AMSTERDAM. 



came to an end. One day an English fleet quietly sailed into 
New Amsterdam Harbor. 

England and Holland were at peace with each other, but 
the English commander of the fleet, Colonel Nichols, sent a 
letter to Fort Manhattan, requiring Stuyvesant immediately 
to 5aeld the fort and turn over the government to the Eng- 
lish. He announced that Charles 11., King of England, 
claimed all the east coast of America because of Cabot's dis- 
covery, more than a hundred and fifty years before. 

Nichols added that King Charles had given the territory 



8o FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

between the Connecticut and Ma'^'yland to his brother James, 
the Duke of York, who had sent this fleet to take possession 
of the country. 

From the moment that the English vessels were first seen, 
Stuyvesant began preparations for defence. He ordered all 
the able-bodied men to enrol as soldiers or to work upon the 
fortifications. New guns were mounted and the shores pa- 
trolled. But this effort came too late. The people saw that 
they could not successfully resist the English, and they en- 
tered into the work half-heartedly. Besides, many English 
people had settled among the Dutch, and these were ready to 
welcome an English government. 

A second letter reached Stuyvesant and his council. This 
offered very favorable terms. It stated that only a change 
in flag and governor would be required. The council ad- 
vised that the letter be made public and the people permitted 
to decide what they would do. At this Stuyvesant became 
very angry, declaring that the people had nothing to do with 
it. He was the governor and he would not surrender. He 
even tore the letter into small pieces, to prevent its being 
read to the people. 

The council put the parts together again, made a fresh 
copy of the letter, and published it. The people were so 
strongly in favor of yielding that six commissioners were 
sent to treat with Colonel Nichols. Terms of surrender were 
written and Stuyvesant was compelled to sign them. 

Thus, without bloodshed and without even serious disturb- 
ance, New Netherland was lost to Holland, and New York 
became an English colony (1660). The Duke of York gave 
New Jersey to two of his friends, and afterward sold Dela- 
ware to William Penn. In 1776 these three colonies entered 
the Union as three States. 



PETER STUVVESANT. 8 I 

The Dutch people continued to live in New York and did 
not seem to realize the change in government. Stuyvesant 
himself retired to his farm, or ' bowerie, " of six hundred acres. 
His house was near the present corner of Third Avenue and 
Twelfth Street, and h'is farm gave the name to one of New 
York's famous streets. His garden was noted throughout 
the city, and a pear-tree, which he had brought over from 
Europe, continued to thrive for two hundred years. This 
pear-tree, protected by an iron railing and often visited as 
an historical relic, stood until it was blown down thirty years 
ago. 

Stuyvesant spent the rest of his life on this farm, and 
died at the ripe age of eighty. 

Describe Hudson's voyai:;;e : on the ocean; on the river; home 
again. 

Give an accoiint of Champlain. 

Tell the story of the settlement of New Amsterdam ; of its poor 
governors and its troubles. 

Give an accotmt of Stuyvesant: as a soldier; as a governor. 

Tell the story of the capture of New Sweden; of the capture of 
New Netherland. 

Has a northwest passage j^et been found? Do you know of any 
modern plans for a shorter western water-passage from Europe to 
Asia? What was the principal reason for colonizing New Netherland? 
Were Stuyvesant and Hooker much alike? Had Sweden any right to 
make a colony? Would Roger W^illiams have said that she had a 
right? Which had the better claim to the land between Connecticut 
and Maryland, Holland or England? How many Colonies have we 
now read about? How many of the original thirteen States? 
6 




CHAPTER XI 

Lord Baltimore 

1582-1632 



A FEW years before Walter Raleigh sent out his colonies 
to Roanoke Island, George Calvert was born in Yorkshire, 
England. When barely seventeen years of age he was grad- 
uated from the University of Oxford. After a few years 
spent in travel he became the private secretary of Sir Robert 
Cecil, the favorite statesman of Queen Elizabeth. When 
James I. was king of England, Calvert was made a member 
of his private council, was knighted, and later was ap- 
pointed to one of the highest offices in the English govern- 
ment. 

Sir George Calvert here showed himself to be exact and 
careful in all his work. In his high office he naturally made 
many enemies, but even they always acknowledged his hon- 
esty and purity. He was a most sincere lover of his country, 
but after serving it faithfully for six years he resigned and 
asked permission from the king to retire from public life. 
He did this because he had become a Roman Catholic and 
could no longer uphold the Church of England. The king 
granted his request and honored his faithful servant by mak- 
ing him Baron of Baltimore, in Ireland. 



LORD BALTIMORE. 



83 



The Pilgrims had fled to Holland and then to Plymouth 
because they would not obey the rules of the Church of Eng- 
land. The Puritans had established Massachusetts Bay as 
a place of refuge from religious persecution. At the same 
time the Roman Catholics in England were also harshly 
treated, but they had no place to which they might go. Lord 
Baltimore had for years been interested in the new colonies 
in America, and now that he had more leisure he wished that 
he might make a home for 
Catholics also. 

King James and his vson, 
King Charles, still remained 
friendly to Lord Baltimore, 
even though he had changed 
his church. Therefore when 
he purchased a part of the 
island of Newfoundland, 
calied Avalon, he easily ob- 
tained permission from King 
Charles to colonize it. He 
sent out a colony the year 
after Plymouth was settled, 

and buildings were erected and the land cultivated. A few 
years later he himself visited Avalon, but the weather was 
so cold that he was greatly discouraged. He gave up the 
colony and sailed for Virginia. 

Baltimore was a Catholic, and the Virginians did not like 
Catholics. Therefore life in Jamestown was unpleasant for 
him, and he returned to England. He was vStill anxious to 
form a colony, and persuaded King Charles to give him land 
on both sides of Chesapeake Bay, north of the Potomac River. 
Before the deed was signed Baltimore died, and his son, Cecil 




WHERE BALTIMORE STARTED HIS COLONY. 



84 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

Calvert, became Lord Baltimore and received the grant in his 
father's stead. 

This was one of the largest free gifts of land ever made 
to any one man. The grant included the present State of 
Maryland and even much more territory. And what do you 
think the king required of Baltimore and his children in pay- 
ment for this land? All he asked was that they would give 
to him at Windsor Castle every year two Indian arrows. 

Not a very high rent, it is true ; but this yearly present 
showed that the king still claimed a higher power over the 
new province than the proprietor, Lord Baltimore. 

Cecil Calvert at once began preparations to send over a 
colony. He could not go himself, and therefore put his 
brother Leonard in command. Two vessels — one, the Ark, 
of large size, and the other, the Dcn'c, much smaller — sailed 
in November, with about three hundred colonists. The col- 
ony was to be a refuge for persecuted Catholics, but many of 
the voyagers were Protestants, and Calvert showed his sense 
of justice by ordering that no one should trouble another on 
account of the way in which he tried to worship God. 

For four months the two vessels continued on their course 
to the new province of Maryland, so named in honor of the 
queen of England, Henrietta Maria. The little company 
landed at an island in the Potomac River and set up a cross, 
claiming the country for Christ and for England. Then the 
Dove was sent farther up the river to seek for a spot for a vil- 
lage. The Potomac Indians were astonished when they saw 
the little vessel, and exclaimed that they would like to see 
the tree from which that great canoe was hollowed out; for 
they knew nothing of fastening different pieces of timber 
together. 

Leonard Calvert decided not to settle so far from the 



LORD BALTIMORE. 



85 



ocean. He was not sure what the Indian chieftain had 
meant in his mysterious answer to his question. Calvert had 
asked him: '' Shall we stay here or shall we go back?" The 
chief had replied: "You may do as you think best." The 
governor, accordingly, floated down the Potomac and finally 
built a village at St. Mary's (1634), two years before Roger 




A MARYLAND CAVALIER PROTECTING A PURITAN FROM ABUSE. 



Williams fled from Massachusetts Bay and founded Provi- 
dence and Rhode Island. 

Lord Baltimore's greatest wish was that the colony should 
be successful and should furnish a safe retreat for Catholics. 
He had no dislike for any who might not agree with his own 
religious views. He also knew that England would never 
permit the Catholics to drive Protestants out of Maryland. 
Therefore, from the very beginning, although there was no 
law to that effect, Baltimore secured religious toleration in his 
colony. By this is meant that no one was punished or trou- 
bled for his religious beliefs. 

Thus it was that Maryland was the first colony to allow 



86 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

its colonists to worship God as they wished. Rhode Island, 
two years later, established by law perfect freedom in all re- 
ligious matters; Pennsylvania, founded fifty years afterward, 
also granted religious freedom. These three colonies differed 
from the others in this respect. Now, the religious liberty of 
Lord Baltimore, of Roger Williams, and of William Penn, 
has become the law in each of the forty-five States of our 
Union. 

Maryland was frequently in difficulties with the neighbor- 
ing colonies, but most of the quarrels were quietly settled. 
The boundary line with Pennsylvania caused much trouble, 
but the two colonies finally accepted the line laid out by two 
surveyors. Mason and Dixon. This boundary between Penn- 
sylvania and Maryland has been called Mason and Dixon's 
line even to the present time. Maryland remained in the 
possession of the Baltimores most of the time, until, with the 
other colonies, it became independent in 1776. 

Give an account of the life of George Calvert until he became Lord 
Baltimore. 

Tell the story of the Avalon colony. 

Give accounts of the grant of Maryland; of the voyage of Leonard 
Calvert; of the settlement. 

Explain the " religious toleration" of Maryland. 

Newfoundland is not farther north than England; why did its cold 
discourage Calvert? Was the grant of Maryland pleasing to Virginia? 
For what reasons? Why did Leonard Calvert decide to settle near the 
coast? Do you think that the Indian chieftain wanted Calvert to stay? 
Name the colonies that you have already studied, in the order in which 
they were settled, without giving dates. 




CHAPTER XII 

William Penn 



1644-1718 

Forty years after the vScrooby band of Separatists fled 
from England to escape persecution, George Fox began to 
preach new religious doctrines, that brought to him and his 
followers even more severe persecution. Like the Separa- 
tists, Fox demanded the right to worship God as seemed to 
him best. He even asked for a simpler form of worship than 
the Pilgrims had sought. He would give to everybody equal 
rights, and he claimed that God only was his superior. 

The company of earnest believers who followed the 
teaching of George Fox called themselves " Friends." Their 
peculiar religious beliefs brought them into constant trouble. 
They were nicknamed Quakers, and soon were commonly 
known by that name. 

They were punished for refusing to show reverence to the 
king by removing their hats in his presence. They were 
persecuted because they preached their doctrines whenever 
they found an opportunity. They were whipped and im- 
prisoned; they were confined in filthy dungeons; they were 
fined and sold as servants. 



88 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

The Quakers were punished as severely in the colonies as 
in England itself. Even those people who had left England 
because of religious persecution forgot the Golden Rule, and 
treated the Quakers worse, if anything, than they themselves 
had been treated. 

Massachusetts and Connecticut began by banishing the 
Quakers and ordering them not to return. When they did 
come back and continue to preach, they were punished terri- 
bly, and finally some of them were put to death. After this, 
persecution became less severe, the people began to see more 
of good and less of harm in the Quaker ideas than they had 
supposed, and in time all opposition to them disappeared. 

One of the most important followers of George Fox, and 
one who did more for the despised Quakers than any one else 
could have done, was William Penn. This famous man was 
born just before Fox announced the new doctrines. While 
a student at Oxford University, Penn was led by a Quaker 
preacher so far to accept the belief of the Friends that he 
was expelled from college. His father, a distinguished naval 
officer, was extremely angry with his son and refused to help 
him in any way. After a time, however, young William ob- 
tained his father's permission to travel and study, and he 
spent a few years abroad. 

One day, while traveling in Ireland, Penn learned that 
his old Oxford friend, the Quaker preacher, Thomas Loe, 
was to speak in the neighborhood. Penn determined to hear 
him again, and the sermon so moved him that he decided to 
join the despised and persecuted band. When it began to be 
reported in the high society in which the Penn family was 
prominent that " William Penn was a Quaker again or some 
very melancholy thing," his father refused to have anything 
more to do with him. Time and again this sincere Quaker 



WILLIAM PENN. 



89 



was fined and imprisoned, but all the opposition only in- 
creased his enthusiasm. 

After his father's death, Penn received his property. He 
now became interested in America, as he thought that in that 
new world, across the ocean, it might be possible to establish 
a home for the persecuted Friends. In spite of the unpopu- 
larity of his religious belief, Penn had many powerful friends, 
among whom was the 
king's brother, James, 
the Duke of York. 

It happened that Penn 
found himself one of the 
owners of that part of 
New Jersey which was 
called West Jersey. His 
influence here became 
very great, but not so 
great as if he had been 
the sole owner. , He be- 
gan to think about that 
rich and fertile territory 
which lay across the Delaware River. His father had per- 
formed many services for the king of England, who, in con- 
sequence, owed him sixteen thousand pounds. Penn feared 
that this debt might never be paid, and he accordingly pro- 
posed to King Charles to give him land across the Delaware 
in place of the money due him. 

"After many waitings, watchings, solicitings, and dis- 
putes in council," wrote Penn, "this day my country was 
confirmed to me under the great seal of England." 

Penn had great hopes for the future of his new province. 
He wrote ao^ain : " God will bless and make it the seed of a 




PENN AS A COURTIEK KEFORE KING CHARLES. 



90 



FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



nation. I shall have a tender care of the government, that 
it will be well laid at first." 

He at once sent out a company of emigrants, and with 
them instructions as to the founding of a city. He was anx- 
ious to have the capital of his province a more beautiful and 
healthy town than the crowded cities of Europe he knew so 
well. He directed that a site for the city should be chosen 

on the Delaware at some 

point where " it is most 
navigable, high, dry, and 
healthy; that is, where 
most ships can best ride, 
of deepest draught of 
water, if possible, to load 
or unload at the bank or 
key-side without boating 
or lightening of it." Here 
he planned a large and 
pleasant city, as he hoped, 
for all future time. 

Penn was a simple 
Quaker and wished to 
have nothing done that 
might make him proud or seem to be proud. He suggested 
that the name of New Wales be given to the province, as it 
was hilly like Wales. But the king's secretary, "although 
a Welshman," refused to accept that name. 

Penn next proposed Sylvania, or the forest country, and 
the secretary prefixed the syllable Penn to it, Penn wrote : 
" Though I much opposed it and went to the king to have it 
struck out and altered, he said it was past and would take it 
on him." The name Pennsylvania was thus given to the col- 




A PENNSYLVANIA MANOR HOUSE. 



WILLIAM PENN. 



91 



ony in honor of the admiral, Penn's father. Penn had his 
own way, however, in naming the new eity. He called it 
Philadelphia, or City of Brotherly Love. 

The next year Penn, with a company of a hundred set- 
tlers, sailed from England. The voyage was long and 
gloomy, nearly one-third of the passengers dying before the 
Delaware was reached. Penn landed in Newcastle in Octo- 
ber and was joyfully welcomed, not only by the Quakers who 
had arrived before him, but also by the Swedes, the Dutch, 
and the earlier English colonists. From Newcastle Penn 
proceeded slowly up the Delaware River to the spot which 
had been chosen for the new city. 

In a few months, houses began to appear and streets to be 
laid out in Philadelphia (1682). Penn had purchased the 
ground from the Swedes and was delighted with the spot. 
He said that the situation was " not surpassed by one among 
all the many places I have seen in the world." This was to 
be the city of brotherly love indeed, " the city of refuge, the 
mansion of freedom, the home of humanity." 

Penn's love for his fellow-men was not limited to his 
countrymen nor to European white men. One of his 
first steps was to bring about a meeting with the Indians, 
in which a treaty of friendship could be arranged. A large 
elm-tree, at Shackamaxon, not far from the centre of the 
new city, was chosen as the place for the interview. Here 
Penn made a speech which won the friendship of the red 
men. 

Penn told them: " I will not call you children, for parents 
sometimes chide their children too severely; nor brothers 
only, for brothers differ. We are the same as if one man's 
body were to be divided into two parts ; we are all one flesh 
and blood." The Indians replied: "We will live in love 



92 



FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



with William Peiin and his children as long as the moon and 
the sun shall endure." 

Thus was established the province of Pennsylvania, the 
twelfth of the thirteen English colonies. King Charles had 

given a tract of land 
south of Virginia to eight 
of his friends. This was 
called Carolina, and later 
was divided and became 
North Carolina and South 
Carolina. Fifty years 
after Penn had landed at 
Newcastle, James Ogle- 
thorpe established the 
thirteenth colony (1733), 
Georgia, the youngest of 
the company, but now 
the " Empire vState of the 
South." The thirteen 
colonies, though engaged 
now and then in struggles with their governors, frequently 
in conflict with the red men, and at times at war with their 
French and vSpanish neighbors, nevertheless quietly grew and 
developed until they were ready to be a nation by themselves. 

Tell the story of George Fox and the Quakers. 
Give an account of how William Penn became a Quaker. 
Describe the grant of Pennsylvania; the founding of Philadelphia; 
the treatment of the Indians. 

What religious bodies were persecuted in England? What colonies 
were founded as refuges for persecuted people? Are any of these 
people persecuted in our country to-day? Why could Penn give great 
aid to the Quakers? Was Penn's choice of a capital for his colony 
wise? Name the thirteen colonies in the order of their settlement. 




PENN'S TALK WITH THE INDIANS. 




CHAPTER XIII 

King Philip 

—1676 

The character and condition of the Indian tribes and their 
relation to the colonies form an important subject in New 
England history. In the earliest times the settlers and 
the Indians were at peace with each other. Very naturally 
differences sprang up, and after a while Indian wars followed. 

The earliest important Indian war was with the Pequots, 
about the time that Hooker founded Hartford. The white 
settlers were so few in number and were so scattered that 
there was great danger that the Indians would overcome them 
and blot out their settlements. The Pequots, however, were 
finally destroyed, and soon after the colonies of Massachu- 
setts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven formed 
a league to protect themselves against the Indians. They 
called themselves "The United Colonies of New England." 

Forty years of peace with the Indians followed the de- 
struction of the Pequots. This was broken by " King 
Philip's War." 

King Philip, as he was usually called, was the son and 
successor of Massasoit, who had been the chief of the Poka- 



94 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

nokets or Wampanoags. This was a powerful tribe living in 
Plymouth Colony and along the borders of Rhode Island. 
Most of Rhode Island was occupied by the Narragansetts. 
King Philip and the Pokanokets attempted to induce the 
Narragansetts to join them in a war against the white men, 
but Roger Williams was able to persuade them not to do so. 

This was a great blow to King Philip, and probably saved 
New England from being entirely destroyed. As it was, 
man}^ towns in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Plymouth 
were burned by the Indians. The war was brought to an 
end by the death of King Philip near his old home, at Mt. 
Hope, in Bristol, Rhode Island, just across the bay from Fall 
River. After his death the remnants of his army that escaped 
started in retreat across the country northward under Chief 
Annawan. 

Annawan and his little army were captured by Benjamin 
Church. This was accomplished by a bold strategem, the 
account of which is romantic and interesting. Annawan and 
his followers, fifty or sixty in number, had gone into camp 
for the night at the foot of a great rock in Rehoboth, a few 
miles west of Taunton. On one side of their camp was this 
perpendicular rock, and on the other sides a great swamp 
covered with thick trees and bushes. 

Captain Church, with a few men and two or three friendly 
Indians, crawled out upon this rock after dark and looked 
down upon Annawan 's camp. The rock was fifty or sixty 
feet high. There was no way of approach but to climb down 
the steep side. Church had an old Indian and his daughter 
go down foremost with their baskets at their backs, so that 
Annawan, if he should see them, would not suspect any 
harm. In the shadow of these two and their baskets. Church 
and his companions crept down also. Fortunately an Indian 



KING PHILIP. 95 

woman was pounding corn in a mortar, the noise of which 
prevented their movement being heard. On reaching the 
foot of the rock, Church stepped over Annawan's son and 
sprang to the spot where the Indians had stacked their mus- 
kets. 

The old Indian chief started up and cried out, " Howoh ! 
howoh!" This means, " I am taken." Seeing no way of es- 
cape, he threw himself back upon the ground and lay silent 
until Captain Church had secured all the arms. Then Church 
sent his friendly Indians to the other fires to tell them that 
their chieftain, Annawan, was taken, and if they would sur- 
render peaceably they should have good quarter, but if they 
attempted to escape they would all be slain. The Indians, 
thoroughly disheartened, gave up their arms, both guns 
and hatchets, which were immediately carried to Captain 
Church. 

Having posted his guards. Church turned to Annawan 
and asked, " What have you for supper?" The Indian women 
now prepared supper for Church and his men. Annawan 
asked Church whether he would eat " cow-beef" or " horse- 
beef." The captain told him that "cow-beef" would be more 
acceptable. They made their supper, therefore, from " cow- 
beef" and dried green corn. The Indians had no salt, but 
Captain Church had brought some with him and this seasoned 
his meat. 

Church and Annawan now laid themselves down, but they 
both remained wide awake while the rest of the company 
were fast asleep. These two captains — one an Indian, the 
other a white man — lay upon the ground looking at each 
other perhaps an hour. Captain Church said nothing, be- 
cause he could not speak the Indian language, and he thought 
Annawan could not speak English. At length the Indian 



96 



FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



arose, threw off his blanket, and walked away from the com- 
pany back into the woods. Church moved close to the guns 
and rolled himself over next to )'oung Annawan, so that if 
the Indian should attempt to shoot him his son would be in 
dang'er. 

The moon was now shining brightly, and after a while he 
saw Annawan coming toward him with something in his 




MARCHING OFF ANNAWAN AS A PRISONER OF WAR. 



hands. Annawan fell upon his knees before the captain and 
said in English : " Great captain ! you have killed Philip and 
conquered his country. I believe that I and my company are 
the last that war against the English. You have ended the 
war, and these things belong to you." 

Opening his pack, he pulled out Philip's belt, nine inches 
broad, wrought in various figures, flowers, and pictures of 



KING PHILIP. 97 

many birds and beasts made with black and white wampum. 
This belt when hung upon Captain Church's shoulders 
reached to his ankles. Annawan then handed him another 
belt of wampum, wrought after the same manner, which 
Philip was accustomed to wear upon his head. It had two 
flags on the hinder part which hung down on his back, and 
another small belt with a star upon the end of it which he 
used to hang upon his breast. These were all edged with 
red hair, which Annawan said came from the Mohawk coun- 
try. He then pulled out two horns of glazed powder and a 
red cloth blanket. 

Annawan told Captain Church that these were Philip's 
royalties, and he thought himself happy in presenting them 
to Church, as he was now entitled to them. They spent the 
remainder of the night in conversation with each other. An- 
nawan gave Captain Church a graphic account of his successes 
in former wars. 

What a picture ! These two captains — one the conqueror, 
the other the vanquished — talking all night; and in the 
morning the one with his few men marching the other with 
his larger company to Taunton as prisoners of war ! 

King Philip's War was ended. It had lasted a little more 
than one year, but thirteen villages had been burned to ashes 
and others partially destroyed, and more than five hundred 
white settlers had been killed. 

Though the Indians hated the white men and often mur- 
dered them without reason, yet they would show strong and 
true friendship to such as had been friendly to them. Hugh 
Cole lived in Swansea, near Mount Hope. He had always 
been friendly to the Indians and had made King Philip his 
friend. Before the war broke out, Philip sent word to Cole 
that trouble was ahead, but that no harm should come to him 

7 



98 



FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



or his family. A little later Philip sent another messenger, 
saying that he could not restrain his 5'oung men and Cole 
must take care of himself. He went to a place of safety, but 
the Indians did not burn his house, and no one of the Coles 
was ever molested by the Indians in all that terrible war. 

Describe the Pcquot War; King Philip's War. 

T:ll the story of the capture of Annawan; of his gift to Captain 
Church. 

Give an account of Hugh Cole. 

What colonies were not admitted to the " United Colonies of New 
England"? Why could Roger Williams persuade the Narragansetts 
not to aid Philip? Why did Annawan yield so easily? Why did 
neither Church nor Annawan sleep? What is meant by " royalties"? 
Had tlie Indians reason for hating the white men? 




Indi«ri wvcAfons , 




CHAPTER XIV 

ier de la Salle 

1643-1687 



Samuel de Champlain ascended the St. Lawrence early 
in the seventeenth century, and was delighted with the great 
attractions of the river and the charming scenery of the coun- 
try. He built the City of Quebec the year after the settle- 
ment of Jamestown, and has therefore been called the " Foun- 
der of New France." He was anxious to establish a French 
empire and the Roman Catholic faith in this new world. 

Other French leaders followed Champlain, and in time 
Montreal, Detroit, and Fort Mackinaw were built. Many 
French priests came to New France and established missions 
among the Indians. French fur-traders also made friendship 
with the red men, in order to obtain supplies of furs. These 
priests and traders were active in exploring the country, and, 
while the English colonists remained near the Atlantic coast, 
pushed fr.rther and farther inland. 

Father Marquette discovered the upper Mississippi just 
before King Philip's War in New England. He floated down 
the great river as far as the mouth of the Arkansas. Father 



100 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



Hennepin pushed his canoe up the Mississippi until he saw 
the Falls of St. Anthony, at what is now known as Minne- 
apolis. The greatest of the French explorers was Cavalier 
de la Salle, who gave to France, by his discoveries, her claim 
to the great Mississippi valley. 

La Salle's life was filled with hardships and romantic ad- 
ventures. He first went to Canada when he was twenty-three 

years of age. * He engaged 
in the fur-trade and made 
many excursions back into 
the country among the In- 
dian tribes. 

Think of this French- 
man as, with a few pio- 
neers to help him, he built a 
vessel of sixty tons on Lake 
Erie. In this craft he sailed 
from Lake Erie, past Fort 
Detroit, up Lake Huron, 
by Fort Mackinaw, and 
through Lake Michigan. 
He built a fort near the site 
of the present city of Pe- 
oria. This fort he hoped to make a centre around which a 
large French colony might grow. 

But misfortunes met him on every hand. His vessel was 
lost on a voyage eastward to get supplies for the new settle- 
ment. La Salle was compelled to return to Canada on foot 
to obtain the needed food and ammunition, and found there 
that enemies were opposing him at every step. While in 
Quebec, Indians destroyed his fort at Peoria. 

Not discouraged, but eager as ever. La Salle again started 




THE FIRST VESSEL ON THE LAKES. 



CAVALIER DE LA SALLE. lOI 

for the Mississippi Valley. He built another fort, and, leav- 
ing a garrison to defend it, descended the Mississippi River 
in canoes. This river, below the Arkansas, had never before 
been explored by a European. La Salle continued southward 
until he reached the mouth of the river. Here with impos- 
ing ceremonies he took possession of the country in the name 
of France. 

In honor of his king, Louis XIV., La Salle named this 
great valley Louisiana. The valley of the St. Lawrence, as 
we have seen, also belonged to France, and was called Can- 
ada. These two valleys made up the whole region of North 
America that was claimed by France, and were together 
called New France. 

La Salle and his party returned northward, paddling up 
the river and then crossing the country to Canada. Now La 
Salle sailed for France, to obtain a commission to plant a 
French colony at the mouth of the Mississippi River. He 
was determined that the fertile valley of this greatest of all 
rivers should belong to France. He obtained his commis- 
sion, and in four vessels set sail for the Gulf of Mexico. 

In these vessels he carried colonists and supplies, with 
the intention of making permanent settlements. He was 
disappointed in the character of his men. Many of his sol- 
diers were merely vagabonds and beggars from the streets, 
who had never handled muskets. Many of his workmen, 
whom he suppOvSed were skilled mechanics, proved to be to- 
tally ignorant of the trades for which they were employed. 
La Salle had almost a constant quarrel wth Beaujeu, his cap- 
tain. 

The expedition reached the Gulf of Mexico, and La Salle 
tried to find the mouth of the Mississippi. This he failed to 
do, and finally the whole company landed in what is now 



I02 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



called Matagorda Bay, in the southwestern corner of Texas. 
Here they built a fort, which he named St. Louis. One of 
his vessels loaded with valuable stores was wrecked at the 
entrance of the bay. Quarrels among the men continued, 

until finally Beaujeu and 
his crew set sail for 
France. One small ves- 
sel was left, but this was 
afterward wrecked. 

La Salle made repeat- 
ed journeys to discover 
the mouth of the Missis- 
sippi. Nearly two years 
passed and matters went 
from bad to worse. He 
finally made a last and 
desperate effort to reach 
the river, hoping to as- 
cend it and bring relief 
from Canada t6 his per- 
i s h i n g colonists. But 
upon a branch of the 
River Trinity, he was 
murdered by one of his 
followers. Thus ended in a fearful tragedy the life of 
the foremost pioneer of the Great West. 

Father Anastace, who stood by his side when the fatal 
shot was fired, said : " Thus perished our wise conductor, 
constant in adversities, intrepid, adroit, skilled, and capable 
of anything. He, who during a period of twenty years had 
softened the fierce temper of savage nations, was massacred 
by his own people whom he had loaded with benefits. He 




CAVALIER DE LA SALLE. 



103 



died in the vigor of life, in the midst of his career and labors, 
without the consolation of having jseen their results." This 
great Frenchman deserved a better outcome for his life's 
work. 

But he had done great things for France. He — and we 
might almost say he alone — had by his great daring and his 
repeated explorations given to his king the entire valley of 
the Mississippi River from the Alleghanies to the Rocky 
Mountains. 

Give an account of the settlement of Canada. 

Describe La Salle's trip to Illinois; his journey down the Missis- 
sippi River; his search for its mouth ; his failure and death. 

What was the principal business of the French in Canada? Was 
this like that of the men in the English colonies? Who first discov- 
ered the Mississippi River? Who first sailed down this river? Who 
discovered its mouth? What was the principal cause of La Salle's 
final failure? 




A Birch 6&rk C«noc 




James Wolfe 



1727-1759 

For a hundred and fifty years a contest went on between 
the kings of France, Spain, and Great Britain, to see which 
of them should finally control America. 

At the middle of the eighteenth century, France held the 
valley of the St. Lawrence and the entire valley of the 
Mississippi, from the Alleghanies to the Rocky Mountains. 
These two great valleys formed by far the best portion of the 
continent. Spain had Florida, Mexico, and the country far- 
ther south. The English provinces lay along the Atlantic 
coast from Maine to Georgia. 

This contest was finally ended by a war which has usually 
been called the French and Indian War. This name means 
that it was the war of the English colonies, supported by 
the mother-country. Great Britain, against France, with her 
American settlers in these two great valleys and her allies 
among the Indian tribes. The war closed with the battle of 
Quebec. 

This battle was not a great one in numbers, but it was 
great in its results. General Wolfe, who commanded the 
British army, brought into the engagement but little more 



JAMES WOLFE. IO5 

than three thousand men, while the French opposed him with 
nearly seven thousand. Probably there were less than ten 
thousand men actively engaged, but it was one of the decisive 
battles of the world, because of the changes which it made in 
the future history of North America. 

Gen. James Wolfe was one of England's distinguished 
soldiers. His father was Gen. Edward Wolfe, also an officer 
of distinction in the British army, who had risen from 
grade to grade until he had attained the rank of major- 
general. 

James was bred to the army, being adjutant of his regi- 
ment when he was but sixteen years of age, a lieutenant-colo- 
nel at twenty-three, a brigadier-general at thirty-one, and a 
major-general at thirty-two. He was his mother's boy, deli- 
cate, affectionate, thoughtful, and refined. At one time he 
wrote to her: "The greatest happiness that I wish for is to 
see you happy. If you stay much at home I will come and 
shut myself up with you for three weeks or a month and play 
at piquet ; and you shall laugh at my short red hair as much 
as 3'ou please." 

How do you suppose this young man looked when he com- 
manded the British army at Quebec, wearing the title of ma- 
jor-general? "The forehead and chin receded; the nose, 
slightly upturned, formed with the other features the point 
of an obtuse triangle ; the mouth was by no means shaped 
to express resolution ; and nothing but the clear, bright, 
and piercing eye bespoke the spirit within. On his head 
he wore a black three-cornered hat; his red hair was 
tied in a queue behind ; his narrow shoulders, slender 
body, and long, thin limbs were cased in a scarlet frock, 
with broad cuffs, and ample skirts that reached the knee; 
while on his left arm he wore a band of crape in mourn- 



I06 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



ing for liis father, of whose death he had heard a few days 
before. ' 

The time had come for his decisive battle. His small 
army had tried again and again to bring on the contest. The 
French occupied the Heights of Quebec, and for a long time 

the English could not gain 
an approach. Flags of truce 
sometimes passed between 
the two armies. At one time 
a Frenchman said : " You 
will demolish the town, no 
doubt, but you shall never 
get inside of it." Wolfe re- 
plied : " I will have Quebec 
if I stay here till the end of 
November." 

Finally Wolfe discovered 
a narrow path by which he 
thought he might scale the 
Heights of Abraham. This 
path led up from what is now 
known as Wolfe's Cove, a 
mile or two up the river from 
the city of Quebec. During the night for two full hours 
the procession of boats carrying the soldiers floated silently 
down the St. Lawrence to this little cove. 

General Wolfe was in one of the foremost boats. John 
Robison, afterward professor in the University of Edinburgh, 
who sat in the same boat, used afterward to tell how Wolfe, 
as they floated along, repeated "Gray's Elegy in a Country 
Churchyard." Among the verses was one which so soon 
illustrated his own fate: 




WOLFE RECITING GRAY'S KLEGY ON THE 
WAY TO BATTLE. 



JAMES WOLFE. IO7 

" The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 

And all that beauty, all that wealth, e'er gave, 
Await alike the inevitable hour: 

The paths of glory lead but to the grave." 

Robison said that, after Wolfe had recited this stanza iti a low 
voice and quiet manner, he remarked: "Gentlemen, I would 
rather have written those lines than take Quebec." Every- 
body was silent in the boat when he made this statement. 
No one ventured to say that the hero is greater than the 
poet. 

His men landed rapidly and pushed up the narrow path to 
the summit. At the top the sentry challenged them. He 
was overpowered, and soon the first detachment was on the 
heights called the " Plains of Abraham." These heights were 
so named because a pilot whose name was Abraham Martin 
had owned this piece of ground in the early times of the 
colony. This was in the early dawn, but the real battle did 
not take place until after ten o'clock. 

Montcalm, who commanded the French forces, was greatly 
surprised to find that the English had performed the " impos- 
sible feat" and had really gained the Heights, He attacked 
Wolfe with gallant energy. In the sharp battle which 
followed both commanders were wounded. Wolfe led the 
charge and was shot in the wrist. He wrapped his handker- 
chief about it and kept on. Another shot lodged in his breast 
and he vsank to the ground. A moment after, some one ex- 
claimed : " They run ! See how they run !" 

"Who run?" inquired Wolfe. 

"The enemy, sir; they give way everywhere." 

"Go," said the dying man, "tell Colonel Burton to march 
Webb's regiment down to Charles River, to cut off their 
retreat from the bridge." Then he turned ovier on his 



I08 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

side and murmured: "Now God be praised, I will die in 
peace," 

Montcalm, fighting bravely and impetuously, received a 
shot through his body. Some one shrieked: "Oh, my God! 
my God ! The marquis is killed !" 

"It's nothing, it's nothing," cried Montcalm. " Don't be 




4 ^' 



-^ 



^ 



THE DEATH OF WOLFE. 



troubled for me, my good friends." The French were com- 
pletely routed. Montcalm was carried within the walls of the 
city. He asked the surgeon how long he might live. The 
reply was: "Twelve hours, more or less." 

" So much the better," replied the general. " I am happy 
that I shall not live to see the surrender of Quebec." 



JAMES WOLFE. 



109 




OUK COUNTRY BEFORE ANU AFTER THE FRENCH WAR. 



no FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

The next morning he breathed his last. Late in the even- 
ing he was buried under the floor of the chapel of the Ur- 
suline Convent. A crowd of townspeople witnessed the 
burial. Tears and sobs burst forth. It seemed as if the 
last hopes of the colony were buried with him. 

Indeed it was true that the funeral of Montcalm was the 
funeral of New France. After five days the city surrendered. 

The treaty of peace followed (1763). England demanded 
everything and obtained whatever she asked for. She swept 
France entirely off this continent. She took for herself all 
Canada, the whole valley of the St. Lawrence, and that vast 
territory between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi. 

She, however, allowed France to cede to Spain all that lay 
between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains, which was 
afterward called "The Province of Louisiana." With the 
triumph of Wolfe on the Heights of Abraham the story of 
New France ended and the history of the United States began. 

Count de Vergennes at this time was minister from France 
to Constantinople. When he heard of the treaty he said : 
" England has overshot the mark. She has gone too far; she 
will now tax her American colonies to help defray the ex- 
penses of this war. They no longer need her protection, 
and therefore will throw off all dependence upon the mother- 
country." What a true prophet he was ! 

State the position of France, Spain, and England on this continent 
before the French and Indian War; after the same war. 

Give an account of General Wolfe. Describe the trip down the 
river; the ascent to the plains; the battle. Tell the story of the 
death of Wolfe ; of the death of Montcalm. 

In looking at the map, remember where the English sailor Cabot 
made his voyage, the Spaniard de Soto traveled, and the Frenchmen 
Champlain and La Salle explored; do you see any reasons for the 
divisions of the map? Why did the English fail so often to " gain an 
approach" to Quebec? Do you think that the hero may be greater 
than the poet? Each of the generals was glad to die; why? 




The "Old South where 
Adams urged the people of Boston 
to resist the British still stands 
ainnost as on the day it heard his 
eloquence. Saved from sale by 
those who loved it for its memo- 
ries, it is used as a historical mu- 
seum and for patriotic meetings. 



In the busiest part of Boston 
stands old Faneuil Hall, the 
Cradle of Liberty " The lower 
oor IS used for markets, and the 
great hall, with walls covered 
with portraits of famous patriots, 
as in the Revolution, the 
meeting-place of the people. 



CHAPTER XVI 

Samuel Adams 

1722-1803 

After the great treaty of 1763, by which France divided 
between England and vSpain her possessions in North Amer- 
ica, the English colonies began a new life. 

Before this time the French on the north and west were 
continually troubling the English settlements, and the Span- 
iards on the south v/ere frequently in .conflict with them. 
Now Canada and Florida were under English government, 
and the thirteen colonies had only the ever-present Indians 
to fear. 

Another change had come at the same time. These thir- 
teen colonies had been small and weak ; they had been able 
only with difficulty to keep themselves alive ; they could not 
always protect themselves without help from England. But 
now they had outgrown their weakness ; their population and 
wealth had greatly increased ; they had learned in the last 



112 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

French war that they could fight well, if necessary; they no 
longer felt dependent upon help from England. 

On the other hand, England saw that the colonies were 
stronger, and thought that they ought now to make return 
for her protection to them. The king and the English Par- 
liament believed that the French war had benefited the col- 
onies and that they ought to help pay the great expenses that 
had come from it. Therefore Parliament decided to tax the 
colonists. 

But the colonists considered that this was not right, be- 
cause they were subject only to the king and not to Parlia- 
ment. They had no voice in Parliament and did not wish 
to have. They declared, as the English people had de- 
clared hundreds of years earlier, that no one had the right 
to tax them ; that it was just only for them to tax them- 
selves. 

Thus a struggle began between the mother-country, Eng- 
land, and the colonies, over the question of taxation. This 
contest lasted for Jten years, and was ended by a war which 
we call the War of the American Revolution. What Eng- 
land did and what the colonies did year by year make an ex- 
ceedingly interesting story, but we can tell here only a few 
of the most important facts. 

The struggle began when Parliament passed the vStamp 
Act. 

This Stamp Act required the colonists to buy stamps from 
English officers to place upon all legal papers. No newspa- 
pers, almanacs, marriage certificates, law documents, or other 
important papers could be printed or written unless they were 
stamped by the proper officers. As these stamps must be 
paid for, this act was a form of taxation. As soon as the 
news of its passage reached America, great excitement arose 



SAMUEL ADAMS. II3 

from New Hampshire to Georgia. Speeches were made 
against it in colony after colony. 

The two leading colonies were Virginia and Massachu- 
setts. Virginia spoke first, being led on by the wonderful 
oratory of Patrick Henry. This brilliant young lawyer moved 
in the Virginia House of Burgesses that each colony had the 
right to tax itself. In his famous speech he declared that the 
English king, George HI., was acting like a tyrant and that 
he must expect the fate that comes to tyrants. 

Massachusetts quickly followed by inviting the other colo- 
nies to send delegates to a Congress to be held in New York 
City, to consider what the colonists should do. The Stamp 
Act Congress met and made appeals to the king that their 
rights be not interfered with. A few months later Parlia- 
ment repealed the Stamp Act, the news of which caused great 
rejoicing in America. 

Parliament did not, however, yield its right to tax the 
colonies, and a year later laid a duty upon many articles 
which might be imported by America. Again the colo- 
nists were stirred with anger and at once began to resist. 
They formed associations which agreed to import none of 
those articles upon which the duty was laid. 

One of these articles was tea, and for years almost no tea 
was seen upon the tables of the patriotic colonists. As a 
result, the money obtained by this taxation was very little 
indeed, not sufficent to pay the salaries of the officers who 
collected it. 

Such a conflict as had here arisen always brings some 
great man forward to be a leader. In Massachusetts this 
leader was Samuel Adams. His father had always been an 
earnest patriot, and had filled his son with enthusiasm for the 
future of Massachusetts and her sister colonies. 

8 



114 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

I'he year that the Stamp Act was passed, Samuel Adams 
was chosen one of Boston's four representatives to the Massa- 
chusetts Legislature or General Court. He was soon elected 
clerk, and for ten years he was the head and front, the leader 
in every movement in the colony to resist the English Par- 
liament and its claim of the right to tax the colonies. He 
took the lead in Boston in the formation of the " Non-Impor- 







A PATRIOT COLONIAL UAME TELLS HER GUEST, 'WE HAVE NO 1 EA ON OUR TABLE. 



tation Associations," and daily and hourly guided everything 
with his own hand. 

Little by little the dispute grew into a quarrel, and the 
quarrel became more and more violent. Little by little the 
anger of the English authorities and of the colonists increased 
until they seemed to have nothing in common. 

It needed but a trifle to bring the two parties to blows, and 
that came in 1773. King George HL directed that cargoes 
of tea should be sent to America and the duty collected upon 
it. At once fi. rce opposition was shown throughout the col- 



SAMUEL ADAMS. II5 

onies. The first vessel arrived in Philadelphia and was im- 
mediately sent back. Another sailed into Charleston harbor, 
where the tea was landed, but it was stored in damp cellars 
and rotted. A third was compelled to return to England as 
soon as it reached New York. 

The great struggle, however, came in Boston. Here the 
governor was loyal to England, and was determined that the 
tea should be landed. Besides, as there had been trouble in 
Boston before, English soldiers were stationed in the town 
and English war- vessels in the harbor. 

When the ships arrived a town-meeting was held in Fan- 
euil Hall to determine what should be done. Samuel Adams 
took the lead at once, and, in the presence of thousands, 
moved that: "This body is absolutely determined that the 
tea now arrived shall be returned to the place from whence 
it came." This was agreed to without a single vote "No," 
and the owners were ordered not to land any of the tea. 

The governor, however, refused to permit the return 
of the vessels. Another town-meeting filled the Old South 
Meeting-House and the streets adjoining. The people again 
voted that the tea must be sent back, and the owner went to 
the governor for permission. While he was gone the people 
waited in anxious expectation ; darkness arrived and the 
church was lighted only by a few candles, but the crowd still 
lingered. 

Finally the owner of the tea returned and reported that 
the governor still refused. Thereupon Samuel Adams arose, 
and said in a quiet but clear voice : " This meeting can do 
nothing more to save the country." 

This was doubtless a signal, for immediately a war-whoop 
was heard, and forty or fifty men, dressed as Mohawk In- 
dians, rushed by the doors. The crowd followed them to the 



Il6 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



wharves and eagerly watched them as they boarded the ves- 
sels and threw three hundred chests of tea into the sea. 

Nothing else was done ; but the tea was not landed nor 
did it pay a duty. This action at Boston — the "Tea Party," 
as it was called — seemed worse than that of any of the other 

colonial towns, and Parlia- 
ment immediately began to 
punish the rebellious citi- 
zens of the capital of Massa- 
chusetts Bay. 

Now the struggle is 
ready to break out into open 
fighting. Now an English 
general is made governor of 
Massachusetts, and to him 
is given great power over 
the colony. He seeks to 
deprive the colonists of all 
means of carrying on war, 
if they should be driven to 
it. 

He sends portions of his 
army out in various direc- 
tions to capture cannon and 
ammunition wherever he 
hears that any is stored. He tries to seize cannon at Salem, 
and his soldiers can scarcely be prevented from firing upon 
the people. He attempts to destroy the ammunition stored 
at Concord and causes the first bloodshed in the Revolution, 
as we shall see in another chapter. 

Meanwhile vSamuel Adams, John Hancock, and other 
Massachusetts patriots are actively at work. Governor Gage 




THE BOSTON TEA PARTY. 



SAMUEL ADAMS. II7 

calls the General Court to meet at vSalem. The representa- 
tives come together and are ready to begin their session, but 
their clerk, Samuel Adams, is not present. Has he been 
captured by Governor Gage's soldiers? No! for here he 
comes. As he enters the hall he sees a group of Tories, or 
friends of the king, gathered about the clerk's desk, and one 
of them quietly sitting in the clerk's chair. 

"Mr. Speaker," says the clear voice of Adams, "where 
is the place for your clerk?" The speaker points to the 
place. 

"vSir," continues Adams, "my company will not be pleas- 
ant to the gentlemen who occupy it. I trust they will re- 
move to another part of the house." 

Thus, fearless and determined, Samuel Adams won his 
way in spite of all opposition. He saw that the colonies 
must work together, and he decided that Massachusetts ought 
to call a Congress of all the colonies. But he knew that Gov- 
ernor Gage would dismiss the General Court if he should sus- 
pect what was being planned. 

So Adams and his friends worked quietly, and when all 
was ready Adams suddenly locked the door and directed the 
doorkeeper to allow no one to enter or leave. He then pro- 
posed that a Continental Congress should meet at Philadel- 
phia and that five men be chosen to represent Massachusetts 
in that Congress. 

The Tories attempted to get out of the hall, but Adams 
put the key in his pocket. One of them did escape, how- 
ever, and carried the news to Gage, who immediately sent a 
message to the Court, ordering it to disband. Not until the 
delegates had been chosen was the messenger admitted, no 
matter how much he pounded upon the door. His dismiss- 
ing of the Court came too late, however, for the deed was 



Il8 FIRST STEPS IN TH»E HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

done. Now Samuel Adams must carry on his work at Phila- 
delphia as well as at home. 

The first Continental Congress met in September (1774), 
and a second Congress was called for the next May (1775)- 
This met just after the first blood had been shed at Lexing- 
ton and Concord, and a war had evidently begun. Congress 
appointed Colonel Washington to be " General and Com- 




3fel 



■/•j^sCi^ 



A NEW ENGLAND COLONIAL HOUSE. 



mander-in-Chief of the Army of the United Colonies," and 
also took such other steps as it found necessary to govern the 
country while struggling against English oppression. 

All this time very few persons had any desire to separate 
from England and become independent. Nearly all the colo- 
nists wished merely that the mother-country would grant 
them their rights. 

Samuel Adams had been for a long time, however, cer- 
tain that the struggle must result in independence, but he 
saw that the people were not yet ready for such a step. The 
war must continue and the hostility to England must in- 
crease, before that end could be reached. 

The idea that the colonists should declare themselves free 
and independent was first publicly proposed by Thomas 
Paine. He published a pamphlet, called "Common Sense," 



SAMUEL ADAMS. I I9 

in which he said that independence must come some time, 
and easier now than later. 

Soon the colonies began themselves to speak for indepen- 
dence. North Carolina directed its delegates in Congress 
to agree with other delegates in declaring independence. 
Rhode Island voted that it was no longer subject to the king, 
practically declaring itself independent. South Carolina took 
the next step, followed by Virginia and Connecticut. 

Richard Henry Lee, a delegate from Virginia, moved in 
Congress that " These United Colonies are, and of right ought 
to be, free and independent States." 

On July 2, 1776, this motion was adopted, and from that 
day the United States have been a free and independent peo- 
ple. A committee of five was appointed to draw up a Decla- 
ration of Independence, in which the whole Avorld shoul4 be 
told the reasons for the separation from England. 

Tv/o days later the Declaration of Independence, written 
by Thomas Jefferson, was adopted, and the first Fourth of 
July had come. Four days later the Declaration was publicly 
read to the citizens of Philadelphia, and the great bell on the 
Pennsylvania State House was rung. On this bell was the 
motto, " Proclaim liberty throughout the land, unto all the 
inhabitants thereof." 

A few days afterward the delegates in Congress signed 
their names to the Declaration, the name of the President, 
John Hancock, heading the list, written in a bold hand, 
which, as he said, George III. could easily read. 

Samuel Adams continued to be the servant of the people 
of his loved colony and State, being, in turn, representative 
to the General Court, vState senator, and governor. For twelve 
years he had worked early and late, using all his energies and 
employing all his powers to lead the thirteen colonies to for- 



I20 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

get their differences, unite as one people, and manage their 
affairs for themselves. 

For this purpose the United Colonies must be indepen- 
dent, and now they had so declared themselves. 

Samuel Adams' great work was now done. He left it to 
other leaders, like Washington and Greene, to bring the war 
to an end and compel England to acknowledge that the Uni- 
ted States were free and independent. 

Give an account of the general causes of the American Revolution. 

Tell the story of the Stamp Act and its repeal ; of the tea tax and 
the "Tea Party." ' " 

Give an account of Samuel Adams during his earlier actions: in 
the Old South Church; in the Salem court-room; as he put the key in 
his pocket. 

State what Congress did. 

Tell how the idea of independence grew in the colonies. 

Describe the different steps taken by Congress in July, 1776. 

How did Wolfe aid in preparing the way for the United States? 
Could the colonies have helped pay the debt without being taxed by 
Parliament? What is a tax? Is there a Stamp tax to-day? What is a 
"Non-Importation Association"? Was Boston's destruction of the tea 
a worse act than those of the other towns? Can you think of any rea- 
son why Governor Gage called the General Court to meet at Salem 
rather than at Boston? Was the signing of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence in any way a dangerous act? • 



Taxation zvithoiit Representation 



THE CAUSE OF THE REVOLUTION 




CHAPTER XVII 

Paul Revere 

1735-1818 



Paul Revere, from his romantic story, is one of the most 
famous of the Revolutionists. His father was a goldsmith. 
Paul was trained in that business, and became expert in 
drawing and designing. When the Massachusetts State 
House was built on Beacon Hill in Boston, he was grand 
master of the Masonic Fraternity and laid the corner-stone. 
He was very skilful in working in copper and brass, and 
cast many church-bells and bronze cannon. 

Revere was a very active patriot during the years preced- 
ing the Revolution. Together with William Dawes, he was 
a leader in a secret society of about thirty young men, who 
watched the movements of the British soldiers and observed 
the plans of the Tories. These young men took turns in 
patrolling the streets, and whatever they discovered they re- 
ported to John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and other patriots. 

During this time Paul Revere went to Philadelphia to 
learn how to make gunpowder, and on his return he built a 
powder-mill and put it in successful operation. When the 
Boston "Tea Party" came off, which destroyed so great an 



122 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

amount of tea in Boston harbor, Revere was one of the prime 
movers. 

As we have seen in the story of Adams, General Gage de- 
termined to send an armed force to Concord to capture mili- 
tary stores secreted there. He also desired to arrest Samuel 
Adams and John Hancock, and to send them to England to 
be tried for treason. 

These men were in Lexington preparing to go to Phila- 
delphia to join the second Continental Congress. Gage was 




HOW REVERE AND DAWES RODE THE NIGHT BEFORE LEXINGTON AND CONCORD. 



all ready to send the troops from. Boston to Lexington and 
Concord, when the patriot General Warren was told that they 
were about to start. This was on the night of the i8th of 
April, 1775. Warren at once decided to send William Dawes 
to Lexington by way of Roxbury, Brighton, and Watertown, 
and Paul Revere by way of Charlestown and Medford. 

It was a wise precaution on the part of General Warren 
to send men to arouse the people and notify Adams and Han- 
cock. Warren was shrewd and sagacious. He sent two men 
instead of one, so that if the British should capture one of 



PAUL REVERE. I23 

them, the other might perhaps get through. Then, again, 
Dawes would notify the people through what is now called 
Brookline, Brighton, and Watertown, while Revere waked 
them up along the road through Charlestown and Medford. 

Now think of these two men, earnest in purpose and full 
of interest in the cause they served, galloping their horses 
along the country roads, stopping at the house of every min- 
ute-man, rapping upon the door, and calling upon him to 
arise, take his musket, powder-horn, and shot-bag, and hasten 
to Lexington to oppose and dispute the passage of the British 
soldiers through the country. 

The dogs barked, the children were frightened, and a 
great commotion was stirred up everywhere. On they went, 
and at each farmhouse you might see the tin lantern hastily 
lighted, the minute-man buckle on his belt and cartridge-box, 
take down his musket from the two wooden pins over the 
door, kiss his wife good-by, saddle and bridle his horse almost 
as quickly as the story can be told, and ride post haste toward 
Lexington Green. 

In the early hours of April 19th both the young men 
reached Lexington and gave notice to Adams and Hancock. 
There they were joined by Samuel Prescott, " a high son of 
liberty," and the three rode onward from Lexington toward 
Concord, arousing the people as heretofore. On their way, 
in the town of Lincoln, they met a party of British officers. 
Prescott at once put spurs to his horse, leaped over a stone 
wall, and galloped onward for Concord. Revere and Dawes 
were taken prisoners and wave marched back to Lexington, 
where they were released. 

And now, at about two o'clock in the morning, the bell 
of the old meeting-house at Lexington rang out in sharp and 
rapid peals. Its strokes were quick and heavy. It seemed to 



124 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

say: " Rouse-ye, rouse-ye; wake-up, wake-up; free-dom, 
f ree-dom ; liber- ty, liber-ty; all-awake, all-awake." This 
midnight peal soon brought together the people of the vil- 
lage, old and young, with their firelocks and ammunition, 
read)^ to defend their town and dispute the advance of the 
British. 

Messages were sent everywhere to all the cross-roads, and 
the minute-men of the neighborhood were quickly notified. 
What a hurrying and scurrying was there ! What intense 
anxiety ! Men hastily leaving their homes unprotected, their 
wives weeping, the children scared out of sleep by the cries ; 
the men for the first time in their lives taking arms, without 
guides, counsellors, or leaders, hurrying together with one 
common impulse to fight their common foe, the insolent 
British invaders! 

At early dawn the British forces, eight hundred strong, 
drew up and formed a line of battle at the village of Lexing- 
ton. They were led by Major Pitcairn, who, finding the 
minute-men ready to oppose his march, rode out in front of 
his troops and cried: "Disperse, ye villains! Ye rebels, dis- 
perse! Lay down your arms! Lay down your arms and dis- 
perse!" But the patriots stood motionless- — ■" too few to re- 
sist, too brave to fly." 

Pitcairn then drew his sword, discharged his pistol, and 
with a loud voice cried out, " Fire !" The patriots plainly saw 
that they could not oppose the progress of Pitcairn's army; 
so they quietly withdrew and left them to go on to Concord, 

Among the most alert that morning was William Emerson, 
the minister of Concord. He came out gun in hand, his 
powder-horn and pouch of balls slung over his shoulder. By 
his sermons and his prayers his flock had learned to hold a 
defence of their liberties as a part of their covenant with God ; 



PAUL REVERE. 



125 



his presence with arms strengthened their sense of duty, 
though they would not allow him to fight. 

The Americans made a stand at Concord Bridge. There 
the British fired upon them, and Major Buttrick, of Concord, 




THK. FIGHT AT CONCORD. 



126 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

leaped up and cried out: "Fire! Fellow-soldiers, for God's 
sake, fire !" 

" By the rude bridge that arched the flood, 
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, 
Here once the embattled farmers stood 
And fired the shot heard round the world." 

The Revolutionary War had begun. All the way back 
to Boston the redcoats marched in great haste, harassed by 
the patriots who fired upon them from behind walls and 
rocks and trees. The loss of the British during this retreat 




A MINUTE-MAN HARASSING THE BKITISH. 



was very great. They had marched out of Boston, insolent 
as usual, to the tune of "Yankee Doodle." They returned 
utterly exhausted, leaving in killed, wounded, and missing 
nearly three hundred men. 

The Continental Congress met and vigorously commenced 
to prepare for war. It voted an army, and on the 15th of 
June, 1775, George Washington was unanimously elected 
commander-in-chief. 

Meantime everything in and about Boston displayed 
intense activity. The British army held the city and the 
patriot army was scattered around it. 

The first great battle was fought at Bunker Hill on the 



PAUL REVERE. 



127 



17th of June. During the previous night the hill had been 
fortified by the patriots, and early in the morning the British 
opened -fire from the deck of a vessel in the channel. Just 
after midday three thousand British soldiers landed at the 
foot of the hill and marched straight up toward the American 
works. They were met by a 
terrific discharge of musketry 
and retreated in great dis- 
order. 

The officers rallied the 
troops and they advanced the 
second time up the hill. The 
patriots reserved their fire 
till the British were within 
five or six rods, and then 
the slaughter was fearful. A 
second time they retreated, 
but British honor was at stake 
— the fort must be carried. 
Charlestown had been set on 
fire and nearly five hundred 
buildings were burned. Moreover, the Americans had used 
up their powder and ball. At the third British charge they 
were therefore obliged to retreat. 

They withdrew in good order across the neck to the main- 
land, but during the retreat General Warren was shot in the 
head and died instantly. This was a deep loss to the Ameri- 
can cause. The battle was over, and the British held the 
field. 

An American recently, in Quebec, was shown an old can- 
non. The Canadian said : 

" We took this cannon from you at Bunker Hill." 




Fla^ used by <he New Elnoidiid Jroops 
e,4- \Ue b.»Hle <^^ Bv^nKer Hill 



128 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

"Well," said the American, "you have the cannon, but 
we have the hill." 

This battle showed General Gage that the Americans were 
not to be easily subdued. Franklin wrote to his English 
friends: "The Americans will fight; England has lost her 
colonies forever." 

Give an account of Revere 's early life. 

Tell the story of the night of April i8th; of the battle of Lexing- 
ton ; of the battle at Concord. 

Describe the battle of Bunker Hill. 

Why did Revere want to know how to make gunpowder? Why 
did Gage desire the arrest of Adams and Hancock? Where do you 
understand that General Warren was on the night of the i8th of April? 
Why did Pitcairn call the men at Lexington " rebels'"? What did the 
minute men do after the battle at Concord? Who were the men in 
the " patriot army" at the battle of Bunker Hill? Who won the battle 
of Bunker Hill? Did the battle aid the Americans in any way? 




A RevoluJ.bnftrv Musket. 




XVIII 



George Washington 



1732-1799 



We have already been made acquainted with Samuel 
Adams and Paul Revere, two Boston boys. We have also 
heard about Patrick Henry, a native of Virginia. Now we 
wish to learn about the most distinguished man that Virginia 
ever produced — George Washington. 

George Washington was born February 22d, 1732. His 
birthplace was not far from the lower Potomac River, at a 
place called Pope's Creek, in Westmoreland County. His 
father was Augustine Washington, and his mother was Mary 
Ball. He was the oldest child of his mother, and his father 
died when he was eleven years of age. Few sons ever had a 
more lovely and more devoted mother, and it is certainly 
true that few mothers ever had a more dutiful and affection- 
ate son. 
9 



130 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

In those early days the country sections of Virginia had 
few inhabitants. Well-to-do people had large plantations and 
but few neighbors. Travelling was mostly done on horse- 
back. Negro slaves were numerous. Schools were few in 
that thinly settled region, but young Washington had the 
best advantages that the times afforded. He learned to read 
well, to write well, to " cipher" well, and he learned land- 
surveying. 

In his boyhood he was fond of mathematical studies and 
athletic sports. He had great strength and endurance. 
Tall, well formed, hardy, he could surpass all the boys in 
leaping, jumping, wrestling, and running. In his early 
years he formed his schoolmates into a military company and 
drilled them in the tactics. In his boyhood he was a born 
leader of boys ; later, in his manhood he was equally a leader 
of men. He was always methodical in his habits, careful, 
exact, and thorough in all he did. Many interesting stories 
are told of Washington's boyhood. Some of them, however, 
are not true. It is a pity that even good stories, which are 
not true, should ever be told, especially of a great man. 

But we must not stop for the interesting incidents of the 
boyhood and youth of Washington. You must find these 
stories in other books, and you will all enjoy reading them. 
When he was sixteen years old, Washington was engaged by 
Lord Fairfax to survey his wide tracts of wild land. These 
lands ran across the Blue Ridge and through the Shenandoah 
Valley. It was a severe task for a young man of his years to 
undertake. Moreover, it was full of danger. But it was 
done in such a manner as to give entire satisfaction to his 
friends and establish his reputation as a surveyor. 

At nineteen he was appointed adjutant-general in the 
Virginia army. When he was twenty-one he was sent by the 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



131 




governor of Virginia as commissioner to confer with the offi- 
cer commanding the French forces on Lake Erie. This was 
a wonderful journey, full of adventures, but accomplished in 
safety. He made his report to the governor and his journal 
was published. 

When only twenty-one Washington was promoted to be 
colonel and was made second in command of the Virginia 
forces. Then came the fa- 
mous expedition of General 
Braddock and his disastrous 
defeat at the battle of the 
Monongahela. Braddock 
was killed and the troops re- 
turned to Virginia in dis- 
order. At the age of twenty- 
three Washington was placed 
in full command of the entire 
force of the Virginia militia; 
this was twenty years before 
the battle of Bunker Hill. 

But we must hasten to consider Washington's part in 
that war which made the United States one of the nations of 
the earth. Washington was a member of both Continental 
Congresses that assembled at Philadelphia, and on the 15th 
day of June, 1775, at the earnest request of John Adams, of 
Massachusetts, he was unanimously elected commander-in- 
chief of all the forces for the defence of liberty. 

The battle of Bunker Hill had been fought when, on July 
3d, Washington took command of the army, drawing his 
sword under an ancient elm which is still standing in Cam- 
bridge, Massachusetts. For nearly nine months the British 
army under General Gage and Lord Howe was penned up in 



'^i0#^}i, 



MOUNT VERNON IN WASHINGTON'S TIME. 



132 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 




Boston, while all communication between the town and the 
surrounding country was cut off. 

In March, 1776, Washington fortified Dorchester Heights 
by night. The British saw themselves so surrounded and the 
city so threatened that Gage and his forces left the city and 

sailed away to Hali- 
fax. The Continental 
troops marched in, to 
the great relief of 
the citizens of the 
town. On the next 
Fourth of July Con- 
gress passed the im- 
mortal Declaration of 
Independence. 

The British army, 
having been driven 
out of Boston, took 
possession of New 
York City. They in- 
tended to obtain con- 
trol of the Hudson 
River and thus to sep- 
arate New England 
from the rest of the 
country. Washington so managed as to prevent the British 
from carrying out these plans. His army, however, was 
now quite small, numbering only six or eight thousand men, 
and the outlook was very discouraging. 

Washington was obliged to retreat across New Jersey into 
Pennsylvania. Then by a skilful movement he recrossed 
the Delaware River and gained the great victories of Tren- 




THE ELM AT CAMBRIDGE, WHERE WASHINGTON TOOK 
COMMAND OF THE PATRIOT ARMV. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. I 33 

ton and Princeton, finally driving General Howe back to the 
vicinity of New York. Howe left New York (in 1777) and 
transported his army south to the Chesapeake Bay. Land- 
ing there, he started on the march toward Philadelphia, de- 
feated the Americans, pushed on, and entered Philadelphia 
unmolested. Washington with his army took up a favorable 
position on the Schuylkill River. 

While all these movements were going on through New 
York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, let us see what hap- 
pened farther east. In New Jersey our Gen. Charles Lee 
had been captured by the British. The British General Pres- 
cott was in command of the forces at Newport, and Colonel 
William Barton, of the Rhode Island militia, laid a bold plan 
for his capture. 

With a picked company of forty brave men. Colonel Barton 
rowed across Narragansett Bay one dark night, almost di- 
rectly under the guns of the British vessels, and tied his boats 
to the bushes upon the shore. Then they silently stole 
across the fields and surrounded the house where Prescott 
was sleeping, disarmed the sentinels, burst open the doors, 
and took General Prescott and one of his aides out of their 
beds, grasping their clothing and carrying it with them with- 
out waiting for the prisoners to dress. They hurried them 
down to the water's edge, into the boats, and succeeded in 
rowing past the British guard-ship before the alarm had been 
given. 

During their hurried march across the fields with the 
prisoners not a word had been spoken, but when they were 
once seated in the boat General Prescott quietly remarked to 
Colonel Barton: 

"You have made a bold push to-night, colonel." 

"We have done what we could, general," was the reply. 



134 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

Prescott was exchanged for General Lee, and Colonel Bar- 
ton, for his bold and successful enterprise, received a sword 
from the Continental Congress. 

The first campaign of the British had been to cut the 
country in two by holding New York and the Hudson River. 
They now made their second great plan, which was to send 
an army by way of Canada and Lake Champlain down the 
Hudson and so accomplish what they had failed to do before. 
This plan led to Burgoyne's campaign (in 1777), during 
which occurred several battles, and which resulted in the sur- 
render of Burgoyne and his army. 

Meantime Congress had adopted the " Stars and Stripes" 
as a national banner. This flag had thirteen stripes, seven 
red and six white, and thirteen stars in a field of blue at the 
upper corner next to the staff. The first flag was made by 
Mrs. Betsey Ross, of Philadelphia, who lived near the foot of 
Arch Street. The house in which that first flag was made 
is still standing. This flag was patterned from a pencilled 
sketch drawn by General Washington himself. The new 
flag was used when Burgoyne 's army was marched away as 
prisoners of war. 

Soon after this, Franklin succeeded in making a treaty 
with France, by which the independence of the United States 
was acknowledged. This was the first acknowledgment of 
our independence by any European power, and the first treaty 
o'f commerce and friendship. 

The winter of 1777-78 was a period of great depression to 
the American cause, and particularly in the American army. 
This army was encamped at Valley Forge, now a picturesque 
little village on the right bank of the Schuylkill. It was then 
a bleak and desolate place, where the patriots protected 
themselves behind breastworks which they had thrown up. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



135 



and lived in poor huts made of fence-rails and earth. One 
small room on the ground floor of a stone house, owned and 
occupied by a plain farmer, a Quaker, named Isaac Potts, 
served both for headquarters and lodgings for General Wash- 
ington, the commander-in-chief. 

The soldiers suffered much ; clothing was scarce and of 




WASHINGTON'S FIRST SIGHT OP" THK STARS AND STRIPES. 



poor quality. Their provisions were scant, and some of 
them were without shoes, so that frequently the soldiers 
could be tracked by the blood from their naked feet which 
crimsoned the white snow. There were three thousand 
men imfit for duty, as Washington said, "because they 
are barefoot and otherwise naked." And he added that 
" for seven days past they had little else than famine in 
the camp." 

Then again, Washington was abused and slandered in a 



136 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

way unwarranted and wicked. It is related that one day 
Friend Potts, the Quaker, when on his way up the creek, heard 
the voice of prayer. Following the direction of the sound, he 
soon discovered Washington upon his knees within the great 
forest of tall trees, at a place retired and hidden from view. 
His cheeks were wet with tears as he poured out his soul to 
God. The good farmer quietly withdrew without being dis- 
covered, and when he arrived at his house he said to his wife, 
with much emotion : 

"Hannah, Hannah, George Washington will, succeed! I 
tell thee George Washington will succeed ! The Americans 
will secure their independence I" 

"What makes thee think so, Isaac?" inquired his wife. 

" I have heard him pray in the forest to-day, Hannah, and 
the Lord will surely hear his prayer. He will, Hannah, thee 
may rest assured He will." 

But Congress adopts measures of relief. General Clinton 
succeeds General Howe, evacuates Philadelphia, and moves 
across New Jersey. 

Then occurs the battle at Monmouth Court-house, where 
Washington himself saves the day and gains a notable vic- 
tory. The British army now retreated to New York, and 
Washington took up his position at White Plains. This was 
the last important conflict fought in the Northern States. 

The next year was another gloomy period, but through 
the whole war, whether in victory or defeat, even in the 
midst of the greatest discouragements, perplexities, and 
difficulties, Washington always preserved that good judg- 
ment, self-control, and confidence in the right which were 
such marked features of his character and which eventually 
brought to him the greatest and most permanent success. 

A further account of the progress of the war will be found 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



137 



in the next chapter. We must not, however, part with 
Washington just here. We shall see, hereafter, that the war 
was continued vigorously and under serious discouragements, 
until finally the British army under Lord Cornwallis surren- 
dered at Yorktown to the combined armies and navy of the 
United States and 
France. Practically this 
ended the war, and later 
our independence was 
granted by Great Britain. 

General Washington 
now retired to private 
life, but a new constitu- 
tion for the United States 
was adopted in 1787, and 
under it Washington was 
unanimously elected 
President. He held that 
high office eight years, 
from 1789 to 1797, and 
refused a third election. 
He died December 14th, 
1799. 

His death caused the 
most sincere mourning, 
not only all over the 

United States, but in every country of the civilized world. 
He had conquered Great Britain, the foremost power of the 
world on the battlefield. He presided over the convention 
which framed our national constitution, and he was chief 
magistrate of the young republic for eight years. 

An anecdote is told to the effect that, after the treaty of 






^%um" r - 






rl', 






r / 



'^y 



WASHINGTON TURNING THE BATTLE AT MON- 
MOUTH. 



138 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

peace with Great Britain had been concluded, a grand dinner 
was given in Paris in honor of the success of the commission- 
ers in arranging terms of peace. 

At this dinner the English ambassador offered a toast: 
"King George III. : like the glorious sun at midday, he illu- 




WASHINGTON AT TRENTON. 
(From the painting by John Faed.) 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 1 39 

mines the world." Then the French minister offered as his 
toast: "Louis XVI.: like the full moon riding in splendor, 
he dissipates the shades of night." It was now Franklin's 
turn, and all eyes were fixed upon him. The philosopher 
slowly arose and called on the company to join him in a toast 
as follows : " George Washington : like Joshua of old, he com- 
manded the sun and the moon to stand still, and they obeyed 
him." 

Washington displayed the highest qualities as a leader of 
men, as a military chieftain, and as a statesman. He shrank 
from no duty, his patience and perseverance overcame every 
obstacle, his moderation disarmed all opposition ; his courage, 
physical, mental, and moral, was of that kind which knew no 
fear whatever. In the case of obstacles which would discour- 
age other mien, he knew how to conquer by waiting until 
victory should come. 

He stood first among men, not only in the eyes of his 
countrymen, but also in the opinion of the world. As his 
fame was bounded by no country, so it will be limited to no 
age. 

Give an account of Washington as a boy ; as a young man. 
Describe the campaign about Boston ; around New York City ; in 
New Jersey; near Philadelphia. 

Tell the story of the capture of Prescott. 

Describe Burgoyne's campaign ; also the last campaign in the North. 

Why was the surveying of Lord Fairfax's lands a " severe task"? 
Why was it " full of danger"? Who were the " Continental troops"? 
Why did their entrance into Boston " relieve" its citizens? How has 
the United States flag been changed since it was first made? Why 
was Friend Potts so certain of Washington's final success? 




CHAPTER XIX 

Nathaniel Greene 

1742-1786 



General Greene was a Rhode Islander. His father was 
a Quaker preacher. He had a strong and vigorous constitu- 
tion, and in his boyhood was foremost in every rural sport 
and game. He had a marked passion for books, but his only 
schooling was at his father's house under the direction of a 
private tutor for the half-dozen boys in the family. 

It is said that " one of the happiest days of his life was 
that which first saw him the owner of a Euclid." 

On one occasion when he visited Providence and had fin- 
ished the business for which he had come, he hastened to a 
bookstore, stepped up to the counter, and said : " I want to 
buy a book." 

"What book?" asked the bookseller. To this young 
Greene was unable to reply, and he stood silent and blush- 
ing, not knowing what to say. Dr. Stiles, a clergyman from 
Newport, afterward the president of Yale College, was pres- 
ent and saw the boy's perplexity. 

" So, my boy," said he, " you want to buy a book and don't 
know what book you want?" "I guess so," said Greene. 
" Well," said the clergyman, "is it a story book or a school 



NATHANIEL GREENE. 



141 



book that you want?" "I want a book," said Greene, "that 
will make me know more." "Well," said the clergyman, 
" there are many such books, for I suppose there are a good 
many things wtiich you do not know yet." "I do not know 
much of anything," said the boy, " but I want to know more." 

So the minister gave him good advice as to what were the 
best books to read and what to study, and became one of his 
lifelong friends. Through 
the advice of Dr. Stiles 
he began to study Watt's 
"Logic," and "Locke on 
the Understanding." 

Greene helped to organ- 
ize a military company call- 
ed the Kentish Guards, and, 
arms being scarce, he went 
to Boston to purchase a 
musket (1774). While in 
Boston he witnessed the 
drilling of the British 
troops, and was greatly im- 
pressed with the imposing 
appearance of the regulars 
at their morning and even- 
ing parades. Little did the British officers, in the pride of 
their gallant array, dream who was looking upon them from 
under the broad-brimmed hat of the Quaker, or how fatally 
for them the lessons would be applied. 

Hiding his musket under the straw in the wagon, he 
started for Rhode Island. He took with him a British deser- 
ter whom he had engaged as drill-master for the Kentish 
Guards. 




1 WANT A BOOK THAT WILL MAKE ML KNOW 
MORE." 



142 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

Rhode Island voted to raise an army of sixteen hundred 
men, and appointed Greene to command them, with the rank 
of major-general. vSee this young man, at the age of thirty- 
three, marching his regiment to join the Continental army at 
Cambridge. He is appointed a brigadier-general in the 
Continental service, and enters upon those military duties 
which are to engage his whole attention till the close of the 
war. 

He was one of the earliest to recommend a Declaration of 
Independence. More than a year before the Declaration was 
passed, he wrote to a member of Congress as follows: 

" Permit me to recommend, from the sincerity of a heart 
at all times ready to bleed for my country's cause, a Declara- 
tion of Independence ; and call upon the world and the great 
God who governs it, to witness the necessity, propriety, and 
rectitude thereof." 

He rapidly won the confidence and esteem of Washing- 
ton, and through the whole war was regarded as the second 
general in the army, next in command to Washington. He 
marched his brigade from Boston to New York, and took a 
prominent part in the skirmishes and battles around that 
city. 

He was with Washington through the long winter at Val- 
ley Forge. From there he wrote to a friend : " I have no 
hopes of coming home this winter; the general will not grant 
me permission. Mrs. Greene is coming to camp; we are all 
going into log huts — a sweet life after a most fatiguing cam- 
paign." After this, we find him at the battle of Monmouth, 
where his services were of the highest order. 

The British General Clinton, determined to transfer the 
war to the South, sent a force against Savannah, and took the 
city. The British, emboldened by their success, captured 



NATHANIEL GREENE. 



143 



Charleston after a long siege, and General Lincoln was 
obliged to surrender his army. Then General Gates was 
placed in command in the South, and lost the battle of Cam- 
den. This battle clearly showed that Gates was not the man 
for the place. 

But we must not forget that notable battle at Kings 
Mountain. Colonel Tarleton was a British officer, who, un- 
like most officers of the 
British army, was no- 
torious for his extreme 
barbarity and inhuman 
butchery of prisoners. 
At Kings Mountain he 
was attacked by an im- 
promptu band of volun- 
teers, who, under the 
command of Col. Isaac 
Shelby and Col. John 
Sevier, determined to 
rid the country of Tarle- 
ton's corps. The Am- 
ericans were completely 
victorious. 

Finally General Greene was appointed to succeed Gates 
in command of the Southern army. Washington had in- 
tended that Greene should have the command before, but Con- 
gress had given the position to Gates. Greene's campaign 
was carried on under many disadvantages, but was managed 
with great skill. The Americans were entirely victorious at 
the battle of Cowpens. They lost but twelve men killed and 
sixty wounded, while the British lost one hundred and twenty- 
nine killed and wounded and six hundred prisoners. The 




144 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



Americans captured one hundred horses with many wagon- 
loads of stores, 

Tarleton barely escaped with his life. He was wounded 
by a blow from the sword of Col. William A. Washington. 
Some time afterward, in a company of Southern ladies, Colo- 
nel Tarleton said : " I have 
been told that Colonel Wash- 
ington is very illiterate and 
can scarcely write his name." 
"But, colonel," replied one 
of the ladies, " he can at least 
make his mark!'' Tarleton 
said : " I would very much 
like to see Colonel Washing- 
ton." The lady instantly re- 
plied : " You might have had 
that opportunity and pleas- 
ure, colonel, if you had look- 
ed behind you at the Battle 
of Cowpens." 

Greene now increased his 
army by new recruits. Then 
came the battles of Guilford Courthouse and Hobkirk Hill. 
Cornwallis was in command of the British army in the 
South, and he marched northward into Virginia, hoping to 
draw Greene after him ; but on the contrary Greene moved 
South and began to win back the Southern States. Sumter 
and Marion captured Orangeburgh, Fort Mott, Granby, Fort 
Cornwallis, Georgetown, and Augusta. In September, 1781, 
Greene fought the last battle of the war in the far South at 
Eutaw Springs. He had reconquered the entire South. 

Now all the armies are drawn together in Virginia. Corn- 




COLONEL TAKLETON'S REBUFF. 



NATHANIEL GREENE. I45 

wallis is there and Washington sends Lafayette thither. 
The French fleet under Count de Grasse sails up the Chesa- 
peake Bay and the Yorl: River. About the first of September, 
Count de Saint Simon joins Lafayette with over three thou- 
sand troops. Washington rapidly moves his main army 
through New Jersey and on to Virginia. Cornwallis had 
fortified Yorktown. The combined American forces sur- 
round the town and his retreat by water is blocked by De 
Grasse. A hundred cannon are turned upon the British forts 
and dismount every one of their guns. The British General 
cannot break through the lines, he cannot retreat, he cannot 
stay where he is. 

So Cornwallis surrendered to Washington, on the 19th of 
October, 1781, and the British fleet to De Grasse. This 
practically ended the war, although the treaty of peace was 
not made till more than a year afterward and the definitive 
treaty a year after that {1783). The news of the surrender 
of Cornwallis was received with great joy by the people all 
over the country. December 13th was observed as a day of 
national thanksgiving. 

Give an account of Greene's boyhood; of his trip to Boston; of his 
joining the army ; of his life at V^alley Forge. 

Describe the war in the South; the battle of Kings Mountain. 

Tell the story of Greene's Southern campaign ; of the siege of York- 
town ; of the surrender and the treaty of peace. 

What is a " Euclid"? How did Greene's trip to Boston aid him? 
What were the " regulars"? Was life at Valley Forge a " sweet life"? 
How long did the Revolutionary War last? What nations made the 
treaty of peace? 




[benjamin Franklin 



CHAPTER XX 

Benjamin Franklin 

1706-1790 



Benjamin Franklin was one of the most famous men 
that America has ever produced. His life covers the greater 
part of the last century. He was born in Boston, at that 
time the largest town in all the English colonies, but having 
less than ten thousand people. 

There were then ten colonies along the coast. Baltimore 
had not been settled, nor New Orleans. There were no rail- 
roads, and not even a stage-coach in the country. At that 
time there were three colleges and but one newspaper. 

How different was America when Franklin died, an old 
man, eighty-four years of age. The Revolutionary War had 
been fought, the Constitution of the United States had been 
adopted, and Washington had become President. At the 
birth of Franklin the population of this country was proba- 
bly less than half a million. At his death it was nearly ten 
times as great. 

Franklin was a self-educated man. He went to school 
only two years, leaving it when he was ten years of age. At 
that time he went into his father's candle-shop to help make 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. I47 

candles for the people of Boston. He did not like this occu- 
pation and soon grew tired of it. Then his father appren- 
ticed him to his brother James, who published a newspaper. 
Franklin liked this business better. 

While Franklin was at work for his brother, one of his 
duties was to deliver the papers to subscribers. One day, 
in hurrying around a corner of the street, he suddenly ran 
against the table where an old woman was .selling apples, 
and the 'apples rolled off upon the sidewalk. Benjamin 
picked them up and made his apologies to the old lady. She 
was pleased with his intelligence and began to talk to him. 

"Do you ever dream, my little man?" she said. "Oh, 
yes," he replied, "I dream sometimes when I've eaten too 
much supper." "Well, do you believe in dreams?" "Oh, 
yes," said Franklin, "I believe in dreams — that is, I believe 
that I dream and other people dream." "Yes," said she, 
"but do your dreams come true?" "Well, no. I don't 
think they do usually. Do yours?" "Oh, yes," said the old 
lady, " my dreams always come true, and I dreamed about 
you last night." "Did you? Well, what did you dream?" 
" I dreamed that you bought this book and that you became 
a very wise man." " Well, well ! Indeed, what is the book?" 
and he picked it up and looked at it. '' How much do you 
ask for it?" "Only sixpence, sir." "Well, I think it would 
be too bad for your dream not to prove true just for sixpence, 
so I will buy it." 

He went away with this book, which was a copy of the 
third volume of Addison's "Spectator." With the book he 
was delighted. He was charmed not only with the thought; 
but with the elegant way in which it was expressed. He 
would read one of the short papers, close the book, and re- 
write it, partly in his own language. Then, comparing his 



148 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



work with Addison's, he was quite inclined to say that Addi- 
son's was the better. In this way he found that a good deal 
depends upon how thoughts are expressed, and he began to 
study style. 

If you will read his autobiography, you will find that he 
tells in a charming way how he left Boston when he was 

seventeen years old, 
went to New York, and 
from there to Philadel- 
phia. You will be 
greatly interested in his 
story of how he walked 
up Market Street, Sun- 
day morning, with a 
loaf of bread under each 
arm and munching a 
third, and how Miss 
Read stood at the door 
of her father's house 
laughing at him. Then 
you will find afterward 
that this same Miss 
Read became Mrs. Ben- 
jamin Franklin. 
Franklin's first visit to England was when he was eigh- 
teen years of age. On reaching London he sought for work 
in a printing-office. The foreman said: "Where are you 
from?" Franklin replied: "From America." "From 
America!" says the printer. "And can you set type?" 
"Try me and see," said Franklin. 

He took the composing-stick in his hand, examined the 
case of types, noticing that the letters were arranged in the 




YOUNG FRANKLIN LAUGHED AT BY HIS FUTURE 
WIFE. 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. I49 

boxes in the same way that they were in America, and 
within four minutes he set with perfect accuracy the follow- 
ing sentences: 

" Nathaniel said unto him, Can there any good thing come 
out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see." 

When he was twenty years of age he returned to Phila- 
delphia, and really began his life-work in that city. He pub- 
lished a newspaper when he was twenty-three years old ; he 
kept a stationery shop, and soon began to publish " Poor 
.Richard's Almanac." 

This almanac brought him large profits, and he continued 
it for many years. "Poor Richard's Almanac" contained a 
great many homely maxims, which made it very popular and 
which had a good influence upon the habits and morals of the 
people. Here are a few of these maxims: 

" Then plough deep while sluggards sleep, 
And you shall have corn to sell and to keep." 

" Vessels large may venture more, 
But little boats should keep near shore." 

" Handle your tools without mittens : remember that the cat in 
gloves catches no mice." 

" The sleeping fox catches no poultry." 

" Diligence is the mother of good luck, and God gives all things to 
industry," 

" Silks and satins, 
Scarlet and velvets, 
Put out the kitchen fire." 

" Many estates are spent in getting. 
Since women for tea forsook spinning and knitting. 
And men for punch forsook hewing and splitting." 



150 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

" He that by the plough would thrive 
Himself must either hold or drive." 

Franklin rose rapidly in the esteem of the people. He 
was chosen to fill many offices ; he was postmaster of Phila- 
delphia and a member of the city government; he was clerk 
as well as representative to the legislature ; and he was post- 
master-general for the English colonies. 

He also served the people by his great inventions ; he 
sent a kite up in a thunder-storm and. showed that lightning 
was the same as electricity; he made the Franklin stove, 
which proved much better than the old-fashioned large fire- 
places. He desired to aid education as far as possible; he 
founded the University of Pennsylvania, and he started the 
first public library in Philadelphia. 

When Franklin had become greatly interested in his 
studies, they Avere interrupted by the struggle which led up 
to the Revolutionary War. Franklin was appointed by the 
people of Pennsylvania as their representative to the British 
Government. From this time onward his mind and time 
were mostly occupied in public affairs. 

Franklin tried his best to prevent the passage of the 
Stamp Act, but it was passed and the necessary results fol- 
lowed. The Stamp Act led to the next step, and that to the 
next, and so on, until the Revolution came, which ended in 
the independence of the colonies. Franklin was one of the 
last to believe that independence was necessary. Still, when 
the time came, Franklin heartily yielded and signed the Dec- 
laration of Independence. 

Franklin was sent to France to represent the government 
of the new republic at the Court of Paris. The war went on ; 
the contest was uneven between this little republic with its 
small army and the great power of England with its experi- 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 



151 



enced generals. But Washington overcame the difficulties, 
and the army was finally victorious through the help of 
France, which Franklin by his genius and popularity had se- 
cured. Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown and the war was 
at an end. 

Next came the treaty of peace with Great Britain. In that 
treaty the most important question was what should be our 




FRANKLIN AND THE QUEEN OF FRANCE. 



western boundaries. Franklin and John Jay of New York 
finally succeeded in securing for this countr}^ the territory 
north of the Ohio, so carrying the western bounds of the re- 
public to the Mississippi River. 



152 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

Franklin was now an old man. Soon after the making of 
this treaty he returned to his native land for the last time. 
Yet he had strength enough to engage in one more great 
work for his country. When he was bowed down by the 




"INDEPENDENCE HALL," IN PHILADELPHIA, WHERE INUEFENDKNCE WAS DECLARED IN 
1776, AND WHERE THE CONSTITUTION WAS MADE. 

burden of more than four-score years, he was appointed by 
the State of Pennsylvania as a member of that great conven- 
tion which was to frame the Constitution of the United States 
of America. 

For four months during the heat of summer Franklin 
daily met with his colleagues in the old state-house in Phila- 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 



153 



delphia, in "Independence Hall, "giving to his country those 
wise counsels which came from his long life and varie.l expe- 
riences, his great mental ability, and his remarkable genius. 
This convention had a very difficult task to perform. The 
delegates represented dif- 
ferent States, under differ- 
ent conditions, and it was 
almost impossible to agree 
upon a new Constitution 
that would be approved by 
the States they represented. 

More than a month pass- 
ed by before any successful 
agreement had taken place 
among the members. One 
morning when the conven- 
tion had assembled, Frank- 
lin arose and said : 

"How has it happened, 
sir, that we have not hith- 
erto once thought of humbly 
applying to the Father of 
Lights to illuminate our un- 
derstandings? In the be- 
ginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible 
of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for the divine 
protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard; and they were 
graciously answered. Have we now forgotten that powerful 
Friend, or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance? 
I have lived, 'Ar, a long time; and the longer I live the more 
convincing proofs I see of this truth, t/iat God governs in the 
affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground 




FRANKLIN AT THE CONSl ITUTIONAL CON- 
VENTION. 



154 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise 
without His aid?" 

The convention finally succeeded in framing a Constitu- 
tion that all could agree to. It was not perfect, but it was 
clearly the best that could be obtained. Franklin said of it, 
in a speech to the convention just before the vote was taken : 
"Thus I consent, sir, to this Constitution, because I expect no 
better and because I am not sure that this is not the best." 

While the different members of the convention were sign- 
ing the Constitution, Franklin stood rubbing his eye-glasses 
and looking toward the president's chair, on the back of 
which was represented the sun upon the horizon, shooting its 
slanting rays upward. Franklin turned to the member 
standing near him, and remarked that painters have found it 
difficult to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting 
sun. "I have," said he, "often and often, in the course of 
the session and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to 
its issue, looked at that picture behind the president without 
being able to tell whether the sun was rising or setting ; but 
now at length I have the happiness to know that the sun of 
America is rising." 

Franklin continued to exert himself for the public good 
until the very end of his life. Just before his death he 
signed a memorial to Congress, praying for the abolition of 
slavery in the United States, and the very day before he died, 
in the midst of extreme suffering, he finished a paper upon 
this subject. His age was a little above eighty-four years. 

Without question, Benjamin Franklin was one of the 
greatest men of his age. When the news of his death reached 
France, the National Assembly put on mourning. The 
Frenchman, Turgot, said of Franklin: "He snatched the 
thunderbolt from the sky and the sceptre from tyrants," 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 155 

Franklin and liis wife were buried in the graveyard of 
Christ Church, Philadelphia, at the corner of Fifth and Arch 
Streets. Over the two graves is a large stone slab, bearing 
this inscription : 




When Franklin was a young man and a printer in Phil- 
adelphia, he wrote his own epitaph: 

THE BODY 

OF 

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, 
PRINTER. 

(Like the cover of an old book, 

Its contents torn out, 

And stript of its lettering and gilding,) 

LIES HERE, FOOD FOR WORMS. 
BUT THE WORK SHALL NOT BE LOST, 

FOR IT WILL (as he believed) appear once more, 

IN A NEW AND MORE ELEGANT EDITION, 

REVISED AND CORRECTED 

BY 

THE AUTHOR. 



156 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

State some of the changes in American life that Franklin saw. 

Tell the story of the book and its value to Franklin. 

Give an account of " Poor Richard's Almanac." 

State some of the ways in which Franklin served his countrymen. 

Tell what Franklin had to do with the Stamp Act; with the 
Declaration of Independence ; with the Treaty of Peace ; with the 
Constitution of the United States. 

Why do you suppose young Benjamin disliked the candle business? 
What different things are mentioned that helped Franklin to become 
a writer? Do you understand why Franklin set up those particular 
sentences for the London printer? What do we mean by " homely" 
maxims? Why should we " handle our tools without mittens"? How 
do " silks and satins put out the kitchen fire"? Who passed the Stamp 
Act and how did Franklin try to prevent its passage? What did 
Franklin do in France for the United States? Why was Franklin one 
of the greatest men of his age? 




THE YOUNG NATION AT ITS START. 




CHAPTER XXI 



George Rogers Clark 



CLAffK 



1752 1818 



A FEW days after General Washington and his little patri- 
otic army entered Boston, in the spring of 1776, a young boy 
was hurriedly walking along a trail in the woods of what is 
now Kentucky. As he passed a spring, bubbling up by the 
side of the path, he saw a wild duck drinking the cool waters. 
Like every pioneer boy, he was an expert shot, and in a few 
moments the duck was roasting over a fire which the boy had 
kindled. 

vSuddenly the youth was startled by the sound of a step; 
but it was a firm tread, not the stealthy glide of an Indian 
moccasin. Looking up, he saw a young, soldierly appearing 
man approaching; a man "square-built, thick-set, with high, 
broad forehead, and sandy hair." The newcomer briskly 
called out: 

" How do you do, my little fellow? What is your name? 
Ar'n't you afraid of being in the woods by yourself?" 

The voice of the stranger was pleasing and cordial. The 
boy felt no fear of him, and invited him to taste the duck. 
The man was evidently hungry, for he continued to taste 



158 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

until the duck was entirely eaten. Then the boy asked his 
new friend what his name was. 

"My name is Clark," was the answer, "and I have come 
out to see what you brave fellows are doing, and to help you 
if you need any help." 

George Rogers Clark, who thus suddenly arrived at Har- 
rodsburg, had come, on foot and alone, from Virginia. He 
was twenty-three years of age, and well educated for those 
days. Born in western Virginia, he grew up a great hunter; 
he was from boyhood familiar with frontier life, always ex- 
posed to Indian attack. He had learned surveying in his 
youth, and, armed with axe and rifle, chain and compass, he 
had become so used to tramping through the wilderness and 
the forests that he dared to travel to Kentucky without com- 
panions. 

Such a life as it was in Kentucky in those days! Ordi- 
narily the families moved into the new country in groups. 
First they built a stockade fort for common use. This was a 
square piece of land, surrounded by a palisade or wall of up- 
right logs. At the corners were strong blockhouses, also 
made of logs, and fitted w^th portholes, through which guns 
could be fired. Within this palisade were cabins, so built 
that the back of the cabin was a portion of the palisade itself. 
Entrance to this fort was by a great gate, which was made as 
firm as possible and provided with strong bars to keep it shut 
against the most violent attack. 

The families also had their own cabins upon the farms or 
" clearings" at greater or less distances from the fort. They 
came to the fort only when there was war with the Indians 
or when they feared an attack. Those days of anxiety and 
constant fear can hardly be understood by us. 

At any time the word of warning might come. Often it 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK. 



159 



came at night. Then the family, quietly sleeping in their 
little cabins, far removed perhaps from any neighbor, would 
hear a tapping at the door. Instantly all the older people 
would be awake, for they were always watchful and could 
easily be aroused by the slightest sound. In a inoment every 
one would be in motion. The father would seize his gun 
and ainmunition. The mother would wake and dress the 




A MIDNIGHT ESCAPE TO THE FORT. 



children. The older ones would carry the younger, perhaps, 
or at least some household article, and, with as little delay as 
possible, the house would be deserted. 

A light they did not dare to have. Not a sound was it 
safe to make. The greatest care was used not to waken the 
baby, who would be sure to cry. To the other children, the 
word Indian was enough to prevent a whisper. Thus the 
family hurried along the trail to the fort. The men then 
spent the rest of the night in making every preparation for 
the expected attack. If it did not come, all waited through 
the day in readiness for the dreaded warwhoop the following 
night. 

Perhaps the Indians did not come ; then the families would 
return home in a day or two, only to be ready again for the 



l6o FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

next alarm. Perhaps they would go too soon ; perhaps the 
message would not arrive in time. Then the result was too 
terrible almost for thought. 

Such was life in Kentucky and Tennessee at the begin- 
ning of the Revolution. Such was life in other new territo- 
ries and States at a later day. Nevertheless, the hardy pio- 
neers continued to press forward. Taking their lives in their 
hands, they continually moved westward, leaving the more 
settled regions behind them. Many men seemed to be una- 
ble to live near their fellow-men ; the uninhabited wilder- 
ness alone pleased them. Like the father of Kit Carson, 
they would move farther into the forests because neighbors 
had come within three miles of them. Others would con- 
tinue in their new home and see the little fort become a vil- 
lage, the village become a town, and the town become a city. 
They would let other hardy adventurers carry the advancing 
settlements farther west. 

When Wolfe won the battle of Quebec and laid down his 
life, the English settlers all lived east of the Alleghany 
Mountains. By the treaty with France (1763), however, all 
the region between the mountains and the Mississippi River 
had been ceded to Great Britain. When the Revolution be- 
gan, a few pioneers had crossed the mountains and had set- 
tled in what is now Kentucky and Tennessee. North of the 
Ohio no English settlements had been begun, though some 
traders were traveling through this great Northwest, buying 
furs of the Indians. 

The French had built a few forts to hold this land, in the 
years between La Salle and Wolfe. These the British gov- 
ernment now held. The most important were Detroit, now 
in Michigan ; Kaskaskia, near the Mississippi River, on the 
western side of the Illinois; and Vincennes, on the Wabash. 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK. l6l 

in southwestern Indiana. It was very important for the 
final success of the United States that we should hold all this 
western territory, rather than that any foreign power should 
possess it. 

Neither Congress nor Washington's army paid any atten- 
tion to this territory during the entire war. Congress did not 
appreciate its value, and the army had all that it could attend 
to near the coast. One man, and one only, seemed to realize 
how important the region would be to the United States, and 
also that it could be obtained in spite of the neglect of Con- 
gress. 

A year after Clark arrived in Kentucky he was carefully 
making plans to capture the whole of the great Northwest. 
Accordingly, he sent scouts into the Illinois region, who 
brought back to him reports concerning the fort at Kaskaskia 
and its condition. Then he hastened to Virginia to seek 
assistance from the State government. He went to Virginia, 
because that colony had always claimed this western territory 
as a part of the grant to the London Company. 

Leaving Harrodsburg in October (1777), Clark started on 
foot, and in a month, after travelling six hundred and twenty 
miles, he reached his father's house. Resting here but a 
day, he hastened on to Williamsburg, where he was delighted 
to hear the news of the surrender of Burgoyne. 

Clark at once laid his plans before Patrick Henry, the 
governor of the State. Henry was just the man to approve 
the daring scheme, and entered into it at once. He appointed 
Clark colonel, gave him permission to raise seven companies 
of militia, loaned him twelve hundred pounds, and gave him 
an order for supplies to be obtained at Pittsburg. 

Clark raised a force of a hundred and fifty men, and, with 
his supplies, left Pittsburg the next May. With him went a 



l62 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

number of families for whom the little band acted as an es- 
cort. The party floated down the Ohio River, a distance of 
hundreds of miles, nearly all the way through an unbroken 
forest and past wild lands with no white inhabitants. 

They reached the Falls of the Ohio, where Clark left the 
settlers, thereby laying the foundations of Louisville. 

The little army took the boats again and floated farther 
down the Ohio. Landing opposite the mouth of the Ten- 




CLARK AT THE BRITISH DANCE. 



nessee River, concealing the boats in a small creek, and rest- 
ing but a single night, as he desired to surprise the fort, 
Clark struck out rapidly across the hills toward Kaskaskia. 

Arriving near the fort on the evening of the fourth of 
July (1778), Clark made preparation for the attack. Divid- 
ing his force into two divisions, he spread one out around the 
town and led the other directly to the walls of the fort. 

The surprise was complete. Within, a dance was in 
progress, and even the sentinels had left their posts. Clark 
placed his men at the entrance ; then he quietly entered a 
rear gate and the dance-hall itself. There he stood, silently 
leaning against a doorpost, watching the dancers. 

Most of the Indians who usually hung around the fort 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK. 163 

were at the time on a hunting expedition, but one of them 
had not gone; he lay upon the floor near the entrance. No 
one else noticed the newcomer; but the Indian gazed ear- 
nestly at him, and then sprang to his feet with a war- 
whoop. 

The dance ceased ; all was confusion. But Clark quietly 
told them to continue. He added, however: "You are now 
dancing under Virginia, and not under Great Britain." The 
men then burst in, the commandant, Rocheblave, was seized, 
and Kaskaskia changed hands without bloodshed. The peo- 
ple were mainly French, and were not unwilling to take the 
oath of allegiance to the United States. 

The French priest at Kaskaskia offered to go to Vin- 
cennes and persuade the French people there to yield volun- 
tarily to the United States. In this he was successful ; the 
Stars and Stripes were hoisted, and the people met in the 
church and swore allegiance to the new Republic. Governor 
Hamilton, the English officer in command at Detroit, led 
out a large force and retook Vincennes without opposition. 
He had five hundred men with him, while Clark had but one 
hundred at this time at Kaskaskia. The latter did not dare 
make an attack, and winter found them both still waiting for 
the next move. 

Little by little, however, Hamilton's force grew smaller, 
until at the end of January (1779) Clark learned that the 
British commander had but eighty men at the fort. He de- 
cided upon an immediate attack. Early in February Clark 
set out from Kaskaskia with one hundred and seventy men. 
The distance to Vincennes was over two hundred miles, 
across a country covered with water. The ice in the rivers 
had melted and freshets had overflowed the land. 

The men, with little food, suffering severely from hunger. 



164 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



were obliged to wade for miles through water breast deep, 
with floating ice all around them. That was a terrible march. 
The sufferings of the men cannot be told. After sixteen 
days of such travelling, the little army reached Vincennes, 
surprised the town, and laid siege to the fort. The next day 
Hamilton and the garrison surrendered. 

Thus Colonel Clark, with a few men, by his own bravery, 
his strong personal character, and his great military skill, in 

spite of untold obstacles 
and terrible sufferings, con- 
quered the entire Northwest 
Territory. He obtained pos- 
session of all the important 
forts and settlements, and 
gave to the United States 
complete possession of the 
Ohio River and the eastern 
bank of the Mississippi as 
far south as the Florida 
boundary. When the treaty 
of peace was made with England (1783), the United States, 
after much discussion, finally secured this Western region, 
largely on the ground that Clark had conquered the terri- 
tory and held military possession of it at the time the treaty 
was made. 

Clark captured the country for Virginia and under the 
direction of the Virginia government. The assembly of 
that State thanked him and his officers and men " for their 
extraordinary resolution and perseverance, and for the im- 
portant services which they had rendered their country." 
Afterward it granted two hundred acres of land to each of 
the soldiers. 




THE OLD "NORTHWEST." 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK. 



165 



Give an account of how Clark entered Kentucky. 

Describe a frontier palisade. 

Tell the story of an Indian alarm. 

State the situation in the Western region at the beginning of the 
Revolution. 

Tell the story of Clark's journey to Virginia; of his voyage down 
the Ohio; of his capture of Kaskaskia; of his march to Vincennes. 

In what was Clark like Washington? Why was a light not per- 
mitted nor sound allowed, when the settlers were hastening to the 
fort? Do 5'ou know of any Western fort that is now a city? Why was 
possession of the Western region " necessary to the success of the 
United States"? Has it been of any advantage other than a military 
one? Was an escort needed by families who were moving west down 
the Ohio River? Why were the French settlers at Kaskaskia and 
Vincennes ready to take the oath of allegiance to the United States? 




PIONEER FAMILIES PUSHING INTO THE NORTHWEST. 




•HAMILTON 



CHAPTER XXII 

Alexander Hamilton 

1757-1804 



Less than a month after Samuel Adams had locked the 
doors of the court-room at Salem and had put the key in his 
pocket, a meeting of patriots was called in New York City 
(July, 1774). This meeting was held in the open air and was 
attended by crowds of citizens. The speakers were quiet and 
without enthusiasm ; the speeches did not arouse the people ; 
the meeting was proving a failure. 

Near the platform a young student was standing. He 
had been in the colonies two years only, but he had become a 
most earnest patriot. He felt that the people would never be 
brought to oppose English oppression by any such half- 
hearted remarks. He thought that many things that ought 
to be said had not been said. 

Quietly he pushed his way through and climbed upon 
the platform. When there was a suitable pause, the youth 
stepped to the front without being announced or introduced. 

For a moment the bo}^ stood hesitating, as the throng 
stared, surprised at his boldness. He was but seventeen 
years old and looked younger. In another moment a laugh 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 167 

would have followed, or perhaps cries to come down and not 
interrupt his elders. But the boy's embarrassment was over 
and he began to speak. 

He was a born orator, and in a few minutes his thoughts 
came faster than he could utter them. The crowd listened 
with close attention as he gave clear and sound reasons for 
resisting the king. A murmur ran through the audience : 
"Hear the collegian! Hear the collegian!" The meeting 
was no longer a failure ; the people of New York were ready 
to follow Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams. 

Who was. the seventeen-year-old boy? His name was 
Alexander Hamilton, and this was the first public step in a 
life full of service for his adopted country. During the next 
two years Hamilton was busy in the cause of the colonists. 
He wrote pamphlets replying to the leading Tories of New 
York. He took part in public meetings and spent much time 
in studying military affairs. When the British army left 
Boston and came to New York, Hamilton was appointed com- 
mander of a new artillery company, though still less than 
twenty years of age. 

One incident that happened during the interval between 
Hamilton's first public speech arid the arrival of the British 
army in New York illustrates a remarkable trait of his char- 
acter. 

He was but a boy and filled with all a boy's rashness and 
daring. Yet he had the cool mind of a much older man. 
More than once Hamilton was able to prevent the mobs in 
New York from committing violence. The British ship-of- 
war Asui at one time opened fire upon the town. At once all 
was commotion and excitement. The " Liberty Boys" began 
to threaten injury to every Tory in the city. Among the 
most prominent of these Tories was Dr. Cooper, the president 



l68 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



of the college. The mob rushed to his house. On the steps 
they found Hamilton ahead of them, determined to prevent 
or delay their entrance. He at once began to speak, urging 
them to show reason and not to commit any rash act. Just 
at this point President Cooper called out to the crowd from an 
upper window, advising them not to be guided by such a 

madman as Hamilton. Then 
he fled by a rear entrance. 

Hamilton had perhaps 
saved the old man's life, 
while the worthy president 
supposed that his young stu- 
dent was urging the people to 
attack him. It was a fine act 
in the boy thus to risk his 
life and his influence " in 
behalf of law, order, and 
mercy." 

Five years passed before 
the surrender of Cornwallis. 
Much of this time young 
Hamilton was an aide on the 
staff of General Washington 
and met many leaders of the 
day. His principal employment was to answer the many 
letters which the general received ; but he was present at 
all the great battles and always acted with courage and 
bravery. In the siege of Yorktown Hamilton led a brilliant 
charge against the enemy, attacked them with great vigor, 
and carried everything before him. 

Hamilton was much more than a mere orator or a gallant 
soldier. He was an earnest student of all matters connected 




HAMILTON LEADING THE CHARGE AT 
YORKTOWN. 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 169 

with the government. Soon afte-r the war was over he began 
to see that the States must be united more closely. He was 
certain that, though they had kept together during the 
war, because of their common danger, they would quarrel 
now that peace had come. So, together with George 
Washington, James Madison, and other statesmen, he 
wrote and worked for a convention to form a more per- 
fect union. 

Four years after the peace of 1783, the Federal Conven- 
tion met in Philadelphia. For four months the delegates 
from the different States worked in secret, until they had 
prepared the Constitution of the United States. 

Before this could be used it must be accepted by at least 
nine of the States. As the proposed Constitution was very 
different from the form of government under which the 
country had been governed for several years, many people 
did not like it and tried to have it defeated. 

For many months the contest for and against the new 
Constitution continued in the different States. One by one 
they accepted it, until finally the decision seemed to rest on 
New York. If that State adopted it, the necessary nine States 
would have been obtained. The New York convention met 
with forty-six members opposed to the Constitution and nine- 
teen in its favor. Day after day discussion followed discus- 
sion, and Hamilton was on his feet continually, answering 
objections and giving arguments. Finally the convention 
voted, and three more votes were given for the Constitution 
than against it. Hamilton had won, and the Constitution of 
the United States was adopted. 

Now the new government must be begun and Presidential 
electors chosen in the different States. There was but one 
man thought of for President — the general who had so skil- 



I/O FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



fully carried the army through the Revolution and had then 
quietly retired to his home at Mount Vernon. He was truly 
" first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his coun- 
trymen." Every vote was cast for George Washington for 
President. John Adams, of Massachusetts, was elected Vice- 
President. 

When Congress had counted the electoral votes, messen- 
gers were sent to notify Washington and Adams. The Presi- 



a.:'i^''J 



^-=^ ifiUIPte -^ 4SSM'-^ ■" 



^A^"^^^ 



w 







WASHINGTON'S JOURNEY TO HIS INAUGURATION. 



dent-elect left Mount Vernon and traveled in his carriage 
to New York City. Everywhere he was enthusiastically wel- 
comed by the people, who rode by his carriage as he came 
into and left the towns; who gave him public dinners; who 
scattered flowers in his path ; who built triumphal arches 
under which he must go. From the New Jersey shore he 
was rowed to the city by thirteen oarsmen, in a handsomely 
decorated barge, and was saluted by the firing of thirteen 
guns. 

On the 30th of April, 1789, Washington was inaugurated 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 



171 



President at Federal Hall on Wall Street. He passed through 
the troops into the hall, where Congress awaited him. When 
the Vice-President announced that everything was ready for 
the oath of office to be taken, the President-elect went to the 
balcony of the building. This overlooked the street, which 
was densely packed with citizens who waited in respectful 




FEDERAL HALL, NEW YORK, WHERE WASHINGTON WAS INAUGURATED PRESIDENT. 



silence. Washington solemnly took the oath to " preserve, 
protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States," 
and with closed eyes whispered : 

"So help me, God!" 

Then the air was rent by the joyous cry of the people : 
" God bless our Washington ! Long live our beloved Wash- 
ington !" 

The minister from France afterward wrote : " Tears of joy 
were seen to flow in the hall of the Senate, at church, and 



172 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

even in the streets, and no sovereign ever reigned more com- 
pletely in the hearts of his subjects than Washington in the 
hearts of his fellow-citizens." 

After the inauguration the new President chose his Cabinet 
— men who were to advise him and to help him carry on the 
government. The two leading officers were the Secretary of 
State and the Secretary of the Treasury. Washington ap- 
pointed Thomas Jefferson to the first position ; of him we will 
read in another chapter. He chose Alexander Hamilton to 
have charge of the Treasury. 

Here the great mental powers of the young man showed 
themselves. The government of the United States had 
been unable to pay its debts for more than a dozen years. 
It had borrowed money and could not pay the interest; it 
still owed the soldiers who had fought for it in the Revolu- 
tion. Its credit was gone; by this we mean that it had little 
or no money, and no one would lend it any. 

It was Hamilton's task to give the government a new 
credit ; he must provide ways by which money could be ob- 
tained ; he must make it certain to everybody that the United 
States could and would pay all its debts. All this Alexander 
Hamilton, as Secretary of the Treasury, did. He thus per- 
formed a service for his country which may be considered as 
important as is the service of a great general in carrying on 
a war. 

Had the United States not been able to pay its debts, it 
would have failed just as surely as if it had not obtained its 
independence by the War of the Revolution. 

Hamilton remained in the Cabinet of the first President 
until his great work was done. Then he resigned, and prac- 
tised law until he died at the early age of fort3^-seven. 

Meanwhile Washington was unanimously chosen a second 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 



173 



time, but declined a third term. He also retired from public 
life, and spent his last years at his home at Mount Vernon. 
Here he died, after having served his country faithfully all 
his life, and after having been honored by his country with 
every honor which they could give him. 

Describe the meeting in New York; the steps taken by Hamilton 
before the Revolution began ; his work during the Revolution ; his 
part in obtaining the adoption of the new Constitution; his service as 
Secretary of the Treasury. 

Tell the story of Washington's journey and inauguration. 

How did Hamilton prevent the meeting in New York from being a 
failure? What did he have that the other speakers lacked? How did 
Hamilton's position on the staff of General Washington aid him in his 
later life? What caused the great change in the voting in the New 
York Convention? Why did Washington travel from Mount Vernon 
to New York in his own carriage? How else could he have traveled? 
Why were there thirteen oarsmen and thirteen guns? Is credit any 
less necessary to a nation than to a business man? 




THK OLD CONTINENTAL MONEY. 




CHAPTER XXIII 

Thomas Jefferson 



1743-1826 

A FEW months after General Wolfe's victory at Quebec 
(1759), a seventeen-year-old boy entered Williamsburg, the 
capital of Virginia. The youth .belonged to one of the best 
families of the country, and had friends and relatives almost 
from one end of the colony to the other. 

Yet young Thomas Jefferson had never before seen a town, 
nor even a village of twenty houses. To him Williamsburg, 
with its two hundred houses and its thousand inhabitants, 
seemed almost as large as London itself ; to him the splendor 
and elegance of the first families of Virginia, as they lived 
their gav life when the colonial legislature was in session, were 
hardly less brilliant than those surrounding the king of Eng- 
land at the Court of St. James. 

This young man had come to the capital to attend William 
and Mary College, the second oldest college in all the colo- 
nies. He was fond of study and spent more hours over 
his books than most of the students did ; yet he never failed 
to take needed exercise, being especially skilled in horseback 
riding. While at Williamsburg he became acquainted with 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 



175 



nearly all of the leaders in Virginia life, and thus obtained 
an education that does not come from books. 

Five years after Jefferson first entered Williamsburg he 
was still at the capital, studying law. One of his earliest 
friends, Patrick Henry by name, a man a few years older 
than he, a new member of the 
House of Burgesses, was visit- 
ing young Jefferson. During 
this visit the news of the pass- 
ing of the Stamp Act reached 
the town, and this action of 
Parliament was thoroughly dis- 
cussed in the student's room. 

One day Jefferson learned 
that Henry proposed to make 
a speech in the House, urging 
resistance to the vStamp Act. 
When the day came he stood in 
the rear of the hall, listening to 
the glowing words of Henry's 
famous speech. 

Let us listen with Jefferson 
for a moment. Let us imag- 
ine the feelings of the patriotic youth as he hears his friend, 
in the midst of his enthusiasm, say: '' Csesar had his Brutus, 
Charles L his Cromwell, and George HL" — and here he 
paused. What would be the end of the sentence? Did 
Henry propose some harm to the king? 

Here and there in the hall was heard the cry, "Treason! 
Treason!" and it would have been treason had Henry finished 
as they expected. But no! after the pause came the words, 
"George HL may profit by their example." Henry was 




PATRICK HENRY IN HIS GREAT SPEECH 
AGAINST THE STAMP ACT. 



1/6 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

right. Had George III. been wiser, had he read history 
aright, and had he profited by former examples, he might 
have saved the colonies. He did not, and he lost them. 

But here was Thomas Jefferson drinking in every word 
and profiting by it. From this hall he went to take his 
share in the coming conflict. A few years of quiet, in which 
the young man married and built his charming home at 
Monticello, and the struggle broke out. Jefferson prepared 
the instructions for Virginia's delegates to the First Conti- 
nental Congress. 

He was himself a member of the Second Congress. Here, 
in June (1776), a committee was chosen by ballot to draw up a 
Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson headed the 
list, and with him were John Adams of Massachusetts, Ben- 
jamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Roger Sherman of Connec- 
ticut, and Robert R. Livingston of New York. When the 
committee met they urged Jefferson to prepare the draft ; he 
consented, and, with a few changes of words, the immortal 
Declaration of Independence was adopted as Jefferson wrote 
it. For this he has rightly been called the " Framer of the 
Declaration." 

From this Congress Jefferson returned to the Virginia 
House of Burgesses, and three years later succeeded Patrick 
Henry as governor of the State. This position he filled while 
the British armies were active in the South, and he was still 
governor of Virginia when Cornwallis surrendered at York- 
town. After a few years as minister to France, succeeding 
Franklin, Jefferson became Secretary of State, which position 
he held until after Washington was reelected President. 
Then he retired for a few years of rest at his home in Vir- 
ginia, which he had named Monticello. 

When Washington declined a third term as President, the 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 1/7 

people of the United States were not agreed as to his succes- 
sor. There were two parties, Federalists and Republicans; 
the former selected the Vice-President, John Adams, as their 
candidate for President ; while the other party was in favor 
of Jefferson. Adams was elected. Four years later another 
election took place. Adams was defeated and Jefferson was 
chosen President. 

Then for eight years (i 801-1809), Thomas Jefferson was 
at the head of the nation, at a time when there was constant 
danger of war between the United States and either England 
or France. TRe war did not come, however, until three 
years after Jefferson had refused a third term as President. 

Among the many great acts during these eight years, none 
was more important than that by which the territory of the 
United States was doubled. When the treaty of peace with 
England was signed in 1783, the United States had for its 
western boundary the Mississippi River. Spain owned the 
western bank of this great river throughout its whole extent, 
and also both banks near its mouth. Contrary to treaty, 
Spain closed New Orleans as a port of deposit for our citizens. 
This was a serious injury to the new States and territories 
west of the Alleghany Mountains. 

But just as Jefferson became President, Spain sold to 
France not only the island of New Orleans, but also the great 
province of Louisiana, from the Mississippi River to the 
Rocky Mountains. 

Jefferson now determined, if it were possible, to buy New 
Orleans, and Congress voted two million dollars for the pur- 
pose. Robert R. Livingston, our minister to France, was 
directed to try to purchase the island from Napoleon, and 
James Monroe was sent to France to assist him. 

While Monroe is making his long and tedious voyage 



1/8 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

across the Atlantic, let us see what is going on at Paris. 
When Livingston received by letter his instructions from 
President Jefferson to purchase the island of New Orleans, 
he at once approached Talleyrand, the French secretary of 
state. But Talleyrand would not discuss the question, and 
turned the conversation into another channel. Again and 
again Livingston pressed the subject, but without success. 

Meantime difficulties had arisen between France and Eng- 
land. Napoleon, who was now at the head of the French 
Government, saw that war with Great Britain was sure to 
come. He feared that the English navy would capture New 
Orleans and take possession of the whole province of Louisi- 
ana. Then the thought came to him, why should he not sell 
that whole province to the United States. If war was com- 
ing he needed money, and, if the sale could be made, the 
price that the United States would pay for the province would 
greatly help his treasury. 

When Napoleon had thought out this plan, he called to 
him two members of his cabinet to discuss the question. 
This was on Easter Day, 1803. To these two ministers he 
outlined his plan and asked their opinion. Berthier, the sec- 
retary of war, was the first to speak. He opposed the scheme 
with great zeal. The province was a valuable one and long 
ago it had belonged to France. They had now just regained 
possession of it. It would be cowardly to sell it for fear the 
British would capture it. After he had made his argument 
in opposition to the plan, Marbois, the secretary of the 
treasury, replied, favoring Napoleon's proposition. 

Now think of these three men quietly discussing this sub- 
ject all the evening, until late at night. The next morning, 
early, Napoleon had decided the question and sent for Mar- 
bois. He said to him : 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 



179 



" The time for inaction has past. I renounce Louisiana. 
It is not only New Orleans that I will cede, it is the whole 
colony, without any reservation ; but I renounce it with the 
greatest regret. I direct you to negotiate this affair ; have an 
interview this very day with Mr. Livingston." 

That Monday evening Livingston wrote a letter to Presi- 
dent Jefferson, and in it he said : " While I was at dinner to- 
day I looked out of the win- 
dow and saw the secretary 
of the treasury coming up 
the avenue. He had never 
before called upon me un- 
announced. As soon as I 
was at liberty I received 
him in the drawing-room, 
and we talked of this and 
that. When he had gone I 
was quite as much at a loss 
to know what he had come 
for as when he came. Dur- 
ing our conversation, however, I mentioned the subject of 
New Orleans, and, after reflecting a moment, he asked me 
why we didn't propose to buy the whole province. I re- 
plied : ' We do not want it. We have no money to pay for 
it. We have no authority to buy it, the Constitution not 
giving any authority to the general government to increase 
our territory.' " 

But the next day Marbois and Livingston had another in- 
terview upon the subject. It soon became apparent to Liv- 
ingston that Napoleon would be willing to sell the whole 
province, and on the arrival of Mr. Monroe our two minis- 
ters, after carefully considering the whole question, were so 




NAPOLEON DECIDES TO SELL LOUISIANA. 



l80 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



impressed with the great advantage which would come to our 
country from controlling this vast area, that they determined 
— although they had no authority to make such a treaty — to 
assume the responsibility. 

And so they concluded a treaty with France by which that 
country ceded to the United States the entire province of 
Louisiana, embracing the whole country from the Gulf of 

Mexico on the south to 
the British possessions 
on the north, and from 
the Mississippi River to 
the Rocky Mountains. 

This more than 
doubled the territory of 
the United States. 
When Napoleon signed 
the treaty, as he laid 
down the pen after affix- 
ing his name to the doc- 
ument, he said: "This 
accession of territory 
forever strengthens the 
power of the United 
States, and I have just given to England a maritime rival 
that will sooner or later humble her pride." 

Marbois signed the treaty; then Livingston and Monroe. 
When Mr. Monroe had written his name, he arose from the 
chair, turned to Mr. Livingston with manifest emotion, and 
the two shook hands. Then Livingston said : 

" You and I have lived long and done many things for 
which our country will remember us with gratitude, but 
when we have gone from this world that which we have done 




LIVINGSTON AND MONROE CONGRATULATING EACH 
OTHER ON THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON, 



I«l 




United Slal 
English 
Spanish 
Origan Country 



HOW THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE ENLARGED OUR COUNTRY. 



l82 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

to-day will stand out as the noblest work of our lives. The 
treaty which we have just signed has not been obtained by 
art or dictated by force. It is equally advantageous to the 
two countries and it will change vast solitudes into flourish- 
ing districts. From this day the United States takes its place 
among the powers of the first rank." 

We paid for this extensive territory $15,000,000. When 
the treaty became known to the American people they 
were divided in sentiment concerning its wisdom, but it 
was signed by the President, confirmed by the Senate, 
and, as Livingston said to Monroe, from that day the 
United States has ranked among the first nations of the 
earth. 

Jefferson's first term as President was a great suc- 
cess. While he did not plan the purchase of Louisiana, 
yet it was consummated by him during this administra- 
tion. He therefore received the credit for so important an 
event. 

During his second term occurred the treason of Aaron Burr, 
who was Vice-President with Jefferson. Then came the em- 
bargo against British vessels. The times were stormy, and 
Jefferson's career was not without great opposition from the 
Federalists. He refused a third election, and James Madison 
became his successor. 

It is a little remarkable that he and John Adams, the two 
immediate successors of Washington in the Presidency, should 
both have died on the same day, and that day the 4th of 
July, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the American Indepen- 
dence. Jefferson died at Monticello about one o'clock in the 
afternoon. Adams died at Quincy only a few hours later. 
Just before his death he said : " Thomas Jefferson still sur- 
vives." 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 



183 



Give an account of Jefferson's first experience at Williamsburg;. 
Tell the story of Patrick Henry's famous speech in the House of 
Burgesses. 

Give an account of the framing of the Declaration of Independence. 
State the reasons for sending James Monroe to France. 
Explain Napoleon's desire to sell Louisiana to the United States. 
Describe the purchase of that great province. 

From what you have learned concerning the Revolutionary War, 
which of the colonies do you think did the most toward American 
Independence? Which three men would you name as the most promi- 
nent orators who exerted the greatest influence upon the American 
people in favor of independence? Why do yoti think Jefiferson re- 
fused a third term as President? Was the purchase of Louisiana a 
benefit to the United States? What advantages can you mention com- 
ing from this great increase of territory? Who deserves the most 
credit for the purchase of Louisiana? 




A LADY AND GENTLEMAN OF THE BEGINNING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 




Greyhound," — m ad e 
possible by Fulton's 
invention and energy. 



A modern iron-clad. 
In Fulton's time sails 
were the warship's 
only motive power. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

Robert Fulton 

1765-1815 

What a wonderful invention was the American steam- 
boat ! Look at it to-day ! The ferryboats that are constantly 
crossing the Hudson and the East River*at New York — what 
could we do without them ? Think what it would mean if we 
had no coast-line steamers from New York to Norfolk, to Sa- 
vannah, to New Orleans; no elegant floating palaces plying- 
up and down our great rivers, or between Buffalo and Du- 
luth, or between New York and Fall River; no ocean liners, 
greyhounds of the sea, running with perfect regularity be- 
tween this country and the ports of Europe; no steamers 
running with equal regularity between San Francisco and 
the ports of China, Japan, and elsewhere. * . 

Passenger steamers and freight steamers are today doing 
a very large part of our carrying from one port to another in 



ROBERT FULTON. 



185 



our own country, and from one nation to another across the 
ocean. 

The invention of the steamboat was a splendid triumph 
of genius. Like most other inventions, it was not entirely 
due to any one man. Many early attempts to use steam 
power for propelling ves- 
sels upon the water were 
made. 

James Rumsey, of 
Maryland (in 1786), built 
a boat which was moved 
upon the Potomac River 
by steam at the rate of 
four miles an hour. In 
this boat the power was 
applied by forcing out at 
the stern a stream of water, 
which pushed the boat for- 
ward ; the water having 
been taken in at the bows. 

Meanwhile John Fitch, 
of Connecticut, experi- 
mented with his steamboat 
on the Delaware River. His first boat, built in the same 
year, was propelled by paddles, moved by steam power, at 
a speed of three miles an hour; this was afterward increased 
to eight miles. 

Four years later Captain Samuel Morey, of New Hamp- 
shire, built a small boat which he navigated upon the upper 
Connecticut River by steam power furnished by an erfgine of 
his own make. He continued his experiments for many 
years; at one time we find him running his little steam- 




rvV' '■' 



FITCH'S STEAMBOAT. 



1 86 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



boat upon the Delaware River, and again building another 
boat in New York, in which he made the passage from that 
city to Hartford. 

For some years, at the beginning of this century, John 
Stevens, of New York, was engaged in experimenting with 

the steamboat. All these 
experiments, while not 
entirely successful, yet 
gave real assistance to the 
inventors who followed 
them. The first man in 
this country to build a 
steamboat which succeed- 
ed in every way was Robert 
Fulton. 

Robert Fulton was a 
native of Pennsylvania. 
Early in his life he showed 
a taste for drawing and 
painting. At the same 
time even from his child- 
hood he was greatly inter- 
ested in machinery, and 
particularly in new inventions. When he was twenty-one 
years of age Fulton went to London, carrying letters of in- 
troduction to the famous painter, Benjamin West, also a 
native of Pennsylvania. West received him into his family, 
and Fulton was under his instruction, in his favorite art, for 
several years. 

Fulton became interested in improving canals in England, 
and this turned his attention toward the use of steam in pro- 
pelling boats. After this, we find him a member of the fam- 




STEVENS' STEAMBOAT. 



ROBERT FULTON. I 87 

ily of Joel Barlow, an American poet, in Paris. Here he 
made experiments with a boat to be used in torpedo war- 
fare. 

Later still he took up again the subject of steam naviga- 
tion. At this time he was encouraged by Robert R. Living- 
ston, our minister to the French court, who had already ex- 
perimented in America. Livingston furnished the money 
with which Fulton built a small boat near Paris. When he 
had run his boat a few times, Fulton sought to bring it to the 
attention of the French government. He succeeded in awak- 
ening the interest of the great Napoleon. He was directed 
to give a public exhibition of the boat in the presence of a 
committee of learned men. 

For many days Fulton kept steadily at work, seeking to 
make every part as perfect as possible. The day before the 
trial the little steamboat was ready. That night Fulton found 
it difficult to sleep, so much depended on the morrow. To- 
ward morning, when he had fallen into a doze, he was awak- 
ened by a knock at the door and the message that his boat 
was at the bottom of the river. The iron machinery had 
broken through, and both boat and engine had sunk. 

Perhaps this failure was a blessing in disguise. The boat 
was probably too small to make a successful trip. The next 
time he would have a larger vessel. He determined to have 
a steamboat built in America which he fully believed would 
bring success. 

Livingston agreed to pay the bills, and, acting tmder his 
advice, Fulton drew a plan for an engine to be built at Bir- 
mingham, England. He nov/ crossed the Atlantic and at 
New York directed the building of the first really successful 
steamboat in America. It was completed, the great engine 
was properly placed within it, and, on the i ith day of August, 



1 88 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

1807, it left the dock at New York City and steamed up the 
Hudson River. 

The trip to Albany, a distance of about one hundred and 
fifty miles, was made upon this first voyage in thirty-two 
hours. The steamboat was named the Clermont, as a compli- 
ment to Livingston, that being the name of his country seat 
on the Hudson. 

What an interesting sight it must have been to see this 








, '>>JI 



- "^ ->^-»- 



THE KIkST TklP Of FULTON'S "CLERMONT" UP THE HUDSON RIVER. 



steamboat move slowly away from the pier at New York on 
that first memorable trip ! Everybody had said it would not 
move ; the scheme was impossible ; machinery would never 
carry such a heavy boat through the water. They had 
laughed at Fulton ; they had called him insane. 

It was perfectly clear to everybody that the boat would 
not move ; yet it did move. Then they said it would not go 
far — it would soon stop; "but on it went, at the rate of about 
five miles an hour over the whole distance, until it reached 
Albany. 



ROBERT FULTON. 



189 



Its return trip was equally successful, and through the 
summer and fall it continued to make regular trips back and 
forth between New York and Albany. 

The American steamboat was invented, and from that 
successful attempt prodigious results have been achieved. 

Tell something about Rumsey's boat; P'itch's boat; Moray's boats; 
Stevens' boat. 

Tell the story of Robert Fulton : as an artist ; as an inventor of 
other things besides steamboats. 

Give an account of Fulton's disappointment at Paris. 

Tell the story of the Clermont. 

What advantages has a steamboat over a sailing vessel? How did 
Fulton's skill in drawing aid him when he gave directions for the 
building of his boats and engines? Do you know what a torpedo is — 
that is, one that is used in war? Why did Fulton wish the French 
government to know about his steamboat? Did Fulton have any ad- 
vantages or aids that Riimsey and the other early experimenters did 
not have? 




STATUE OF ROBERT FULTON IN THE CAPITOL AT WASHINGTON. 




CHAPTER XXV. 

Stephen Decatur 



1779-1820 



During the first term that Thomas Jefferson was Presi- 
dent, the United States was engaged in a naval war with 
Tripoli. This small nation, on the vsouthern shore of the 
Mediterranean Sea, demanded that the United vStates should 
pay her a large sum of money ; if we would not, Tripoli pro- 
posed to capture our merchant vessels wherever she could 
find them. 

The United States refused to pay this tribute, and for four 
years our navy was employed in fighting these pirates. 
When peace was 'made, the United States had won for her 
navy a place among the navies of the world. 

This naval war gave training to many sailors who, a few 
years later, were required to meet the navy of Great Bri- 
tain, then called " The Mistress of the Seas." Many heroic 
encounters took place in the war with Tripoli, which showed 
the bravery of the sailors of the young nation formed by the 
thirteen States. 

Among them was one incident which caused the Congress 
of the United States to present a sword to the young lieuten- 
ant, its hero. 



STEPHEN DECATUR. I9I 

One of the largest and best of the American men of war, 
the Philadelphia, had been accidentally run aground in the 
very harbor of Tripoli. The sailors had been compelled to 
abandon it, and in a short time the people of Tripoli had 
taken possession. This was a great loss to the American 
fleet; a double loss, for it meant one less vessel for them 
and one more vessel for the enemy. 

The abandoned ship was directly in range of the guns of 
the forts and war vessels of Tripoli. To try to recapture it 
would have been unwise ; many lives would have been lost 
in an attempt that doubtless would have proved a failure. 
However, the daring lieutenant, one dark night, took the 
Intrepid and sailed slowly into the harbor. 

This small vessel had been captured from the enemy and 
still had the appearance of being one of the Tripolitan boats. 
The Intrepid was brought directly to the side of the Philadel- 
phia, and the lieutenant and his men leaped aboard. The 
Tripolitan crew fled in their boats to the shore ; the Ameri- 
can seamen set fire to the Philadelphia. Though the guns 
from the forts opened on them at once, yet the Intrepid sailQ^ 
out of the harbor without losing a man. 

Lieut. Stephen Decatur thus won for himself a place 
among the great American heroes. 

Decatur was born in Maryland during the Revolutionary 
War. His father also was an officer in the American navy, 
and Stephen took his first voyage with him when he was but 
eight years of age. Before he was twenty he was a midship- 
man on board the United States. Young Decatur labored 
hard to make himself master of his profession, and he soon 
became an excellent sailor and a good officer. When but 
twenty-five years of age, because of his exploit at Tripoli, 
he was made a commodore in the American navy. 



192 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

One day, as his ship was sailing in the open sea, the cry- 
suddenly rang out, "Man overboard!" Sailors sprang to 
launch the boats, but Decatur instantly sprang into the sea 
and in a few moments succeeded in reaching the drowning 
man. He held him above the waves until the boats reached 
the spot, and both men were pulled aboard. 

When the war with Great Britain, called the "War of 
1 8 12," broke out, Commodore Decatur was in command of 
the frigate United States, Soon after putting out to sea, De- 
catur fell in with the British frigate Macedonian, commanded 
by Captain Carden. The two vessels cleared their decks 
for action. Just before the battle commenced, little Jack 
Creamer, a lad of ten years, who had been allowed to make 
the cruise, though not old enough to be enlisted as one of the 
crew, started forward toward Decatur, touched his hat, and 
said to him : " Commodore, will you please to have my name 
put down on the muster roll?" 

" Why, my lad?" replied the captain, surprised at the cour- 
age and confidence the little fellow manifested. 

"So that I can draw my share of the prize-money, sir." 
Decatur gave the order that he should be enrolled, and Jack 
returned to the gun of which he was powder boy. 

Then the carnage began. The guns of the United States 
were fired with such rapidity that the whole ship seemed to 
be one mass of flame and smoke from stem to stern. A shot 
soon carried away the mizzenmast of the Macedonian. One 
of the gunners exclaimed: "Ay, ay. Jack, we have made a 
brig of her." (You must remember that a ship has three 
masts, all square-rigged, while a brig has two; one of the 
ship's masts having been shot away, of course but two re- 
mained, and the gunner called it, therefore, a brig.) Decatur, 
who was standing by, immediately replied: "Take good aim, 



STEPHEN DECATUR. 



193 



my lad, at the mainmast, and she will soon be a sloop." (The 
sloop has but one mast.) Soon her fore and main topmasts 
went over the side, and her bowsprit, foreyard, and both 
remaining masts were all badly crippled. 




UECMUK ON THE "UNITED STATES" CAHTUKING THE BRITISH " MACf.UONIAN . 



A gunner saw his comrade desperately wounded at his 
side, and exclaimed to him: "Ah, my good fellow, I must 
attend to the enemy a few minutes longer ; then I will look 
out for you. His colors must soon come down." "Let me 
live till I hear that," replied the wounded man, "and I shall 
13 



194 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

want care from nobody." In seventeen minutes more the 
Macedonian struck her colors, a complete wreck. 

Soon after the action was ended, Decatur sent for Jack 
Creamer and said: " Well, Jack, we have taken her, and your 
share of the prize, if we get her safe into port, will probably 
be two hundred dollars. What will you do with it?" 

" I will send half of it to my mother, sir, and the other 
half shall pay for my schooling." 

"That is noble!" exclaimed Decatur. 

The commodore now received Captain Carden on board 
the United States. That officer extended his sword to the 
victorious Decatur, but the brave commodore said to him : 

" Sir, I cannot receive the sword of a man who has so 
bravely defended his ship." In a private letter to his wife 
the commodore wrote : " One-half of the satisfaction arising 
from this victory is destroyed in seeing the mortification of 
poor Carden, who deserved success as much as we did who 
had the good fortune to obtain it. I do all I can to console 
him." 

But what a terrible thing such a naval battle is ! While 
on the United States only seven were killed and five others 
wounded, on the Maeedonian, out of a crew of three hundred, 
more than one-third of them were killed or w^ounded. 

One of the officers who was sent by Commodore Decatur 
on board the Macedonian after the surrender, described the 
horrible scenes that he witnessed in the following words: 
" Fragments of the dead were distributed in every direction ; 
the decks covered with blood ; one continued agonizing yell 
of the unhappy wounded ; a scene so horrible of my fellow- 
creatures I assure you deprived me very much of the pleasure 
of victory." 

We have seen in the war with Spain how, by the vast im- 



STEPHEN DECATUR. 



195 




THE FAMOUS UNITED STATES VESSEL "CONSTITUTION" (OLD IRONSIDES). 

From the painting by Marshall Johnson. 



196 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

provements which have been made in warlike implements, 
the destruction of life to-day is immensely greater than at 
that period. It is to be hoped that the time is near when 
the leading nations of the world will agree to settle their dis- 
putes peacefully and make war impossible. 

The battle between the United States and the Macedonian 
was but one in a long series of victories for our navy, and 
Commodore Decatur was only one among many distinguished 
naval commanders who brought the British government to 
show greater respect for our republic than she ever had done 
before. 

In the first naval battle of the war, Capt. Isaac Hull, with 
the frigate Constitution {Old Ironsides, as it has been called), 
defeated the British Guerrierc. The Essex, under the com- 
mand of Captain Porter, won many victories and made a re- 
markable voyage on the Pacific Ocean. The United States 
frigate Chesapeake yielded to the British Shannon only after 
the death of Captain Lawrence, who had exclaimed, when 
mortally wounded, " Don't give up the ship!" 

Not only was our navy successful on the ocean, but on the 
lakes as well. Capt. Oliver Hazard Perry built a little fleet 
on the shores of Lake Erie, and after a fight with the British 
fleet announced his victory in these words : " We have met 
the enemy and they are ours: two ships, two brigs, one 
schooner, and one sloop." Perry's victory ended the war 
in the Northwest, and Captain McDonough's victory on Lake 
Champlain was the last contest along the northern boundary. 

In December, 18 14, the treaty of Ghent was signed and 
the last war with Great Britain came to an end. 

This war with Great Britain encourag^ed Alsfiers and the 
Barbary States to make war again upon our vessels in the 
Mediterranean. Commodore Decatur was sent in 181 5 with 



STEPHEN DECATUR. 



197 




198 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

a fleet to demand satisfaction. The frightened Algerines 
promptly signed a treaty and promised to pay for the ships 
which they had captured and to stop their privateering. De- 
catur sailed away to Tripoli and Tunis, and those powers 
agreed to the same terms. Since this expedition of Commo- 
dore Decatur to the Barbary States, we have had no further 
trouble from those pirates. 

Baltimore toasted Decatur with these words : " Renowned 
for his action ; beloved for his virtues." He received a sword 
from Congress for burning the Philadelphia ; another for the 
attacks on Tripoli ; a medal for the capture of the Macedo- 
nian ; from the city of New York a box containing the free- 
dom of the city ; the medal of the Order of Cincinnati ; a 
sword from Pennsylvania, another from Philadelphia, and a 
third from Virginia; and both the cities of Baltimore and 
Philadelphia sent him services of plate for closing the Alger- 
ine war. The American people are not ungrateful. 

Explain the cause of the war with Tripoli. 

Tell the story of the burning of the Philadelphia; of the rescue of 
the " man overboard" ; of the boy, Jack Creamer. 

Describe Decatur's early life; the battle with the J/"«(r^^/<5'«/a//; the 
conquest of the Barbary States. 

Give accounts of some of the naval commanders in the War of 
1812. 

Why do we call Tripolitans pirates? Why was it better to burn 
the Philadelphia than to capture it? What is a midshipman? Which 
required the more bravery, to burn the Philadelphia or to rescue the 
drowning man? Why did Jack Creamer suppose that there would be 
prize-money that he might share? Why did Decatur say that Jack's 
proposed use of his money was " noble"? What effect did the naval 
War of 18 1 2 have upon Great Britain? 




y^^drew JacKson 



CHAPTER XXVI 

Andrew Jackson 



1767-1845 

In the Revolutionary War, after the surrender of General 
Lincoln at Charleston, the whole of South Carolina was over- 
run by the British army. Among those captured on one of 
these raids was a small boy, thirteen years old. He was 
carried prisoner to Camden, and nearly starved. While in 
Camden a British officer, with a very imperious tone, ordered 
the boy to clean his boots, which were covered with mud. 

" Here, boy ! You young rebel, what are you doing there.? 
Take these boots and clean them, and be quick about it, too!" 

The boy looked up at him and said : 

"Sir, I won't do it. I am a prisoner of war and expect 
proper treatment from you, sir." 

The enraged officer drew his sword and aimed a blow at 
the boy's head, which would doubtlesS have killed him on 
the spot had he not thrown up his left arm to protect himself. 
As it was, he received a severe cut on the arm, the mark of 
which he carried to the day of his death. 

His brother, for a similar offence, received a deep cut 
upon the head, from the effect of which he died a few days 
later. Some weeks afterward, his mother, worn out by grief, 



200 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



anxiety, and need, yielded up her life. His father had died 
before he was born. He was thus left an orphan with no 
relatives, no human being in the wide world with whom he 
could claim a near relationship. He was confined to his bed 
by sickness and the sufferings he had undergone while a pris- 
oner in the hands of the British, and then, to cap the climax, 
he took the small-pox, which wellnigh ended his sorrows and 
his life. 

But from all these troubles, trials, and afflictions he ral- 
lied, and became one of the most notable leaders in military 
and political affairs that 
this country has ever pro- 
duced. 

This boy, first brought 
to our attention in the 
Southern campaign of the 
American Revolution, af- 
terward became famous in 
the Creek War, in theWar 
of 1 8 12 with England, in 
the Seminole War in Flor- 
ida, and was twice elect- 
ed President of the United 
States. He held this high 
office for eight years, at a 
time of great party strife, 
when measures of the ut- 
most importance were be- 
fore the country. This 
boy was Andrew Jackson. 

Two years before he was born, his father and mother had 
come to this country from the north of Ireland and had set- 




BRITISH OFFICER ORDERING YOUNG JACKSON 
TO CLEAN HIS BOOTS. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 20I 

tied near the boundary line between North and South Caro- 
lina. Early left an orphan and obliged to earn his own living, 
Andrew's opportunities to attend school were very limited. 
He learned to read, to write after a fashion, and to figure a 
little. In all his life he was never able to write good English. 

As we have seen, his career as a fighter began early. He 
was a firm patriot. He never liked the British, and after 
that blow from the officer's sword his hatred of the g-overn- 
ment of England was always kept alive and burning brightly. 

What sort of a youth must we suppose Andrew Jackson 
was up to this time? He was strong, he had health, he was 
active, but he had no great ambition to rise. He was de- 
scribed as rollicking, noisy, and mischievous. But his boy- 
ish pranks were soon laid aside for the great deeds he wished 
to perform. 

When just of age, Andrew moved into the territory of 
Tennessee. He had previously studied law, and in this new 
country he soon had plenty of business. The rough settlers 
of the frontier usually prefer to settle their disputes with 
their fists, or with knives or firearms. They are too hasty 
to be willing to wait for the slow decisions of courts of jus- 
tice. But when life becomes a little quieter in such regions, 
the pioneers are more willing that their disputes should be 
settled in accordance with the law. Then the lawyer, if he 
is popular among the rude frontiersmen, finds his hands full; 
Andrew Jackson was popular. 

Tennessee was admitted into the Union as a State. Jack- 
son was elected to Congress, first as a representative and 
then as a senator. Soon he was appointed judge of the Su- 
preme Court of Tennessee. After six years as judge he re- 
signed in order to attend to his private business. He had 
fallen into debt, but after a time he paid all that he owed. 



202 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

He had a clear head for business, and he successfully man- 
aged his large plantation. At the same time he became 
noted for his fair and honorable dealings with all men. 

After the war with England broke out (1812), Jackson was 
ordered to Natchez with two thousand men. He went South 
in high spirits, intending to plant the flag upon the ramparts 
at Mobile, Pensacola, and St. Augustine ; for he had long 
desired that Florida should be a part of the United States. 

But soon after his arrival at Natchez he was orde:^ed to 
disband his troops. Jackson was angry at this order, because 
it prevented his attacking Florida. He also felt that it was 
wrong, because it left the soldiers at Natchez ; this town was 
many miles from their starting-point, and the men had no 
money to carry them home. He refused to obey the order 
and marched the troops back in a body. 

During this march he became the idol of his men, and his 
determined will and strength of character brought to him the 
nickname of " Old Hickory. " From this time onward through 
his whole life his friends and admirers called him by that 
name, and gloried in it. 

While the war was going on, the Western Indians arose 
in their might, determined to drive back all the white men 
who had crossed the mountains. The Creek Indians, one 
thousand strong, captured Fort Mimms in Alabama, and mas- 
sacred more than live hundred men, women, and children. 

Jackson now took the field again at the head of twenty- 
five hundred men. His difficulties and dangers were great. 
Provisions were lacking; in that new country it was difficult 
to hold privates to strict military obedience, and quarrels be- 
tween the generals prevented the necessary united action. 
Jackson, however, here showed that he had great ability as a 
general; he was always awake and watchful; he never lacked 



ANDREW JACKSON. 



203 



patience ; and he proved that he knew how to lead men and 
obtain from them faithful obedience. 

He vsoon gained a decisive victory over the Indians in a 
great battle at Horse-Shoe Bend on the Tallapoosa River, and 
the strength of the Creek Nation was broken. 

This campaign of Jackson's marks the downfall of Indian 
power in that section of the country. It also had a decided 




GENERAL JACKSON AT THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS. 

effect upon our war with Great Britain, since up to this time 
the English had received much assistance from the Indians. 
Jackson was now made major-general in the regular army. 

At Mobile and Pensacola he defeated the British and drove 
them entirely out of Florida. They determined to capture 
New Orleans, in order to make a permanent conquest of the 
whole lower Mississippi Valley. 



204 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

Jackson consequently brought his entire force to New- 
Orleans, and soon fought one of the most notable battles of 
the whole war. 

Sir Edward Pakenham, in command of the British forces, 
tried to overwhelm Jackson and his army by a direct attack. 
In less than an hour the British were in full retreat, leaving 
twenty-six hundred men killed and wounded on the field, 
while the American loss was only twenty-one killed and 
wounded. Perhaps in the history of the world no other bat- 
tle was ever fought where one side lost so many and the 
other side so few in proportion. 

It was the most complete defeat the British army had ever 
experienced. Our other land battles in this war had not been 
very favorable to us, but this great victory fully restored the 
reputation of the American armies. 

Until now General Jackson had not been widely and popu- 
larly known throughout the whole country. Many asked the 
questions, "Who is this great man? To what State does he 
belong?" 

From this time until the day of his death he occupied the 
most prominent place in the popular mind. During Monroe's 
second term as President of the United States (1821-1825), 
Jackson began to be talked of for President. When he first 
heard of the suggestion he was thunderstruck. He knew 
himself to be a rough, uneducated, military man, with 
little knowledge of state affairs. At first he ridiculed the 
idea. 

"Do you suppose," said he, "that I araTsuch a fool as to 
think myself fit to be President of the United States? No, 
sir! I know what I am fit for. I can command a body of 
men in a rough way, but I am not fit to be President." 

Jackson really had less personal ambition than many men, 



ANDREW JACKSON. 



205 



but he was very popular, and without doubt flattery went far 
to influence him to accept the nomination. 

But he was defeated and John Quincy Adams was elected 
President. From this time onward Jackson devoted himself 
to politics; and in the next campaign he was elected Presi- 
dent by a large majority, and John C. Calhoun was made 
Vice-President. 

Jackson was so liked that he was reelected. Neverthe- 








TRAVELING BY CANAL BOAT IN JACKSON'S TIME. 



less, during the eight years that he was President (1829-1837) 
he had a stormy time. 

Among the many important events during his Presidency 
was the trouble with South Carolina. Then, as now, people 
were divided in their opinions concerning the tariff. The 
politicians of vSouth Carolina did not like a tariff bill which 
the Congress of the United States had passed. Therefore a 
convention was held in that State which voted that the tariff 
law should be "null and void" in South Carolina. By this 
was meant that they would not allow the United States gov- 
ernment to collect the import taxes upon goods entering that 
State. 

This act was called nullification. It really declared that 



2o6 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

the laws of the United States could not be enforced in South 
Carolina unless that State was willing. It made the State 
greater than the United States. 

Jackson immediately sent Lieutenant Farragut with a 
naval force to Charleston Harbor, and ordered General Scott 
to have troops in readiness to enter South Carolina if neces- 
sary. Jackson believed that a State had no right to "nullify" 
a law of the United States, and that such action was contrary 




THE EARLY RAILWAY TRAIN. 



to the Constitution and, if permitted to become a precedent, 
would finally destroy the nation. 

A bill to modify the tariff, sometimes called the " Clay 
Compromise Tariff Bill," passed Congress and was accepted 
by the nullifiers, and South Carolina remained in the Union. 
Thirty years afterward South Carolina went a little further, 
and declared her right to withdraw altogether from the Union. 
That last act was followed by a four years' war (the Civil 
War), which finally determined the question; now the United 
States is acknowledged by everybody to be a nation, and 
every State is subordinate to the national power. 

The two terms during which Jackson was President form 
a remarkable period in the history of the country. Besides 
the great political events of these years, important changes 



ANDREW JACKSON. 20/ 

in daily life were taking place. Steam railroads were begun, 
anthracite coal was brought into use, friction matches were 
invented, and the reaping machine was patented. 

At the end of this time Jackson retired to private life, 
much more popular even than when he became President. 
He spent the remaining eight years of his life on his planta- 
tion, "The Hermitage," near Nashville, Tennessee. 

Jackson died at the age of seventy-eight, after having held 
more power than any other American had ever possessed, 
and after having succeeded in every great undertaking which 
he attempted. The name of Andrew Jackson is to-day 
classed with those of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, 
and Thomas Jefferson in the hearts of the American people. 

Give an account of the patriotic prisoner of war. 

Tell the story of Jackson's education; of his early character; of his 
campaigns against Florida, against the Creeks, against the British. 

(live an account of Jackson : as a candidate for the Presidency ; as 
President. 

Had the British otficer a right to order Andrew to black his boots? 
Can you understand why Jackson was popular with the pioneers of Ten- 
nessee? Could not Judge Jackson have properly attended to his pri- 
vate business and still remained a judge? Why was Jackson called 
" Old Hickory"? Why was the obedience of privates harder to obtain 
in the new country than in longer-settled regions? 



J ^ ^J ^ ^^ ' ^'^f | ^»^ l M l ^l l ^ ' vWJ ' ^"^J'M ' M ■ ^.J | %M^"V^ ' «^.J''^ '' u^ 




John C. Calhoun 



,-' ^''\'""' 




ftlMi, [l..f'..;-i£j' 



-; Henry Clay 




CHAPTER XXVII 

Calhoun^ — Clay^ — Webster 



1782-1850 



1781-1852 



1782-1852 



For twenty years after Washington became President, 
the development of this country was slow. From i8io to the 
middle of the century its growth was far more rapid. 

During these years great questions were argued in 
Congress, At one time it was the tariff; at another, the 
National Bank; now, it would be the question of internal im- 
provement at the national expense; then, would ap)pear im- 
portant questions relating to the development of our Western 
territory, or the annexation of Texas, or the war with Mexico. 
During this time, also, slavery became one of the most im- 
portant questions before the national government. 

At the beginning of our history as a nation, thirteen col- 
onies, separate from each other, had joined together to secure 
by their united efforts their independence from Great Britain. 
Their union, however, was weak, and jealousy existed be- 
tween the Northern and the Southern States, and between the 
larger and the smaller States. When the Constitution was 



CALHOUN — CLAY — WEBSTER. 2O9 

framed it largely increased the national power, but the peo- 
ple were afraid of any strong, centralized authority over them, 
which might some time take away their liberties. 

Hence arose two parties in the nation. One party favored 
a strong, central, national government; the other party was 
called "the State Rights Party," and its extreme advocates 
held that each State was superior to the nation, that a State 
could ••nullify" or repudiate acts of Congress, or, in an ex- 
treme case, could legally withdraw from the Union. 

The National Party, on the other hand, scouted the idea 
that a part was greater than a whole, that the nation was 
only a league of States, and it held that the United States of 
America was a Nation, made up by a union of all the States 
for national purposes ; that self-preservation is the first law 
of nations as well as of individuals, and that no one State 
could override in any way the national government. 

During this whole period of forty years, three men, whose 
ancestors came from three foreign countries, and who them- 
selves represented three diverse sections of this country, 
the Northeast, the Southeast, and the Central-west, were the 
leaders in the discussion of all these important questions at 
Washington. 

The life of John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, covered the 
period from 1782 to 1850. He was of Irish descent. Henry 
Clay was born one year earlier and died two years later. He 
was of English parentage, and throughout most of his life 
he represented Kentucky. Daniel Webster was born the 
same year as Calhoun, and died in the same year with Clay. 
He was of Scotch extraction. 

When Calhoun first entered Congress we were on the eve 
of a war with Great Britain. From that time he took a fore- 
most place in the discussion of the questions which continued 
14 



2IO FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

to agitate the country. In his earlier years he favored the 
National Bank, a protective tariff, and a system of national 
roads and canals. He was not always consistent, but he ex- 
plained his course by saying that remedies proper for one 
condition of things might be improper for other conditions. 

During Jackson's administration he quarreled with the 
President and soon appeared as the champion of State rights, 
that is, State supremacy over the nation, and defended the 
principle of nullification. 

This means that he held that a State had a constitutional 
right to nullify and make void an act of Congress so far as 
that State was concerned. A convention of delegates in 
South Carolina in the year 1832 passed an ordinance nullify- 
ing the tariff laws. 

A tariff law, it should be explained, is an act of Congress 
imposing a tax on merchandise imported into our countr3\ 
This tariff may be designed only to raise a revenue for the 
government, or it may be intended to protect American in- 
dustries. In the former case it is a "revenue tariff," in the 
latter case it is called a "protective tariff." 

South Carolina's attempt to nullify the national tariff law 
caused great excitement. 

At a public dinner on Jefferson's birthday, after several 
regular toasts had been given favoring nullification, Jackson 
suddenly arose with a volunteer toast: "Our Federal Union, 
it must be preserved." Calhoun immediately replied with a 
toast and a speech in behalf of " Libert5^ dearer than the 
Union." But President Jackson took strong ground against 
the nuUifiers. 

Calhoun was Vice-President. He resigned that office, 
and was immediately elected to the Senate by his State. 
On the floor of the Senate he defended his State and its pol- 



CALHOUN — CLAY — WEBSTER. 2 I I 

icy, but the President threatened to hang the nullifiers as 
high as Haman if they did not recede from their position. 
Congress finally passed a new tariff act more favorable to the 
South, and South Carolina withdrew its opposition to the 
collection of the tariff duties in the ports of that State. 

That ended the controversy for that time, but for years 
before and after this date, Calhoun persistently taught the 
people of the South that the Union was merely a compact 
between the States, which could be broken at pleasure by any 
one of them. Hence, it came to pass that this doctrine, 
which was called the "Right of Secession," continually 
gained adherents in the South. In the North, the right of 
secession and the right to nullify a law of Congress found 
very few adherents, while, as the years passed by, the people 
of the Southern States came more and more generally to be- 
lieve in that doctrine. 

Mr. Calhoun's active life for about forty years was passed 
in the national House of Representatives, in the United 
States Senate, as a member of the President's Cabinet, and 
as Vice-President of the United States. 

Henry Clay, the second of this great trio of statesmen, 
was born in Virginia, early left an orphan, and. obliged to 
earn his own living from the age of fourteen years. He had 
no opportunity for a collegiate education, but studied law, 
and was admitted to the bar at the early age of twenty. He 
then removed to Lexington, Kentucky, and from that time 
onward for nearly half a century till his death he was the idol 
of his adopted State, his lifelong home. 

His political career began before he was twenty-one. He 
was appointed to fill a vacancy in the United States Senate 
before he had reached thirty years, and at the expiration of 



2 12 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



his term the people of Kentucky sent him to the House of 
Representatives, of which he was immediately elected speaker. 
Clay's public life, like that of Calhoun, covered a period 
of more than forty years, and throughout its whole extent his 
career was brilliant in the extreme. He served his country 
as representative, as senator, and as Secretary of State under 
President John Quincy Adams, 

After his service in the Cabinet was ended, he again en- 
tered the Senate, of which he remained a member most of the 

time until his death. He 
was reelected senator in 
1 85 I, took his seat in De- 
cember of that year, but, 
owing to failing health, he 
appeared in the Senate only 
once during the winter. He 
died June 29th, 1852, and 
was buried in the cemetery 
at Lexington, where a mon- 
ument, consisting of a tall 
cylindrical column sur- 
mounted by a statue, stands 
over his tomb. 

Clay was one of the great- 
est orators of his day. But 
it is said that he could never 
quote poetry. The story is told that on one occasion, when he 
was to deliver an address at a barbecue, he determined to 
overcome this inability. He had committed to memory that 
famous passage from Sir Walter Scott : 

" Breathes there the man with soul so dead 
Who never to himself hath said, 




CLAY FORGETTING HIS POETRY. 



CALHOUN — CLAY — WEBSTER. 213 

This is my own, my native land ! 
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd 
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd 

From wandering on a foreign strand? 
If such there breathe, go, mark him well ! 
For him no minstrel raptures swell ; 
High though his titles, proud his name. 
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim, — 
Despite those titles, power, and pelf, 
The wretch, concentered all in self, 
Living, shall forfeit fair renown. 
And, doubly dying, shall go down 
To the vile dust from whence he sprung. 
Unwept, unhonor'd, and unsung." 

This was to be the opening of his speech. He therefore 
began : 

" Mr. President and fellow-citizens : 

'Breathes there the man with soul so dead' " 

but he could not recall the next line. He therefore began 
again : 

" Mr. President and fellow-citizens : 

'Breathes there the man with soul so dead' " 

but the next line was as obdurate as before. It would not 
show itself. He repeated for the third time, and still the 
second line would not come to his memory. He therefore 
was obliged to omit the poetry and go on with what he had 
planned should follow it. 

Calhoun belonged to the Democratic party. Clay, after 
the formation of the Whig party, was a firm adherent to its 
principles. 

Clay figured prominently in many great questions which 
came before Congress during that long period wtien he was 
a member either of one house or the other. He took an im- 



214 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

portant part in the national legislation connected with the 
admission of the State of Missouri, 1 8 19-21. The action of 
Congress at that time created the first great political excite- 
ment over slavery throughout the country. After long and 
bitter discussion of the whole subject, Mr. Clay moved that it 
be referred to a special committee. This motion prevailed 
and he was appointed chairman of that committee. There 
was a joint committee of Senate and House, and these two 
unitedly reported to both houses a resolution admitting Mis- 
souri as a slave State, Maine as a free State, with a provision 
forever prohibiting slavery in all of that territory which we 
had purchased of France, called the Province of Louisiana, 
which lay north of 36° 30', except Missouri. 

This was called the Missouri Compromise, and was largely 
brought about by the influence of Henry Clay. His efforts 
in this matter gave him the name of " The Great Pacificator." 

Clay was the Whig candidate for President in 1844, but 
was defeated on account of his position upon the question of 
the annexation of Texas. At the close of the Mexican War, 
Clay strongly opposed acquiring from Mexico any additional 
territory. 

In 1850, when California asked to be admitted as a State 
with a constitution which prohibited slavery, and the ques- 
tion arose whether slavery should be admitted into New 
Mexico and Utah or excluded therefrom, great excitement 
was created both in Congress and among the people. Lead- 
ing men of the South threatened a dissolution of the Union. 
It was a critical period, and at this time Clay again intro- 
duced into the Senate a new scheme of compromise. This 
included the admissioo of California as a free State ; territorial 
governments for New Mexico and Utah, without any restric- 
tion as to slavery ; a settlement of the boundary line between 



CALHOUN — CLAY — WEBSTER. 215 

Texas and New Mexico, nearly as it stands to-day; an in- 
demnity of ten million dollars to be paid to Texas for her 
claims to this part of New Mexico; the prohibition of the 
slave trade in the District of Columbia, but that slavery in 
this district should not be abolished ; and finally a more 
stringent fugitive slave law. 

This was the famous Clay Compromise of 1850. It 
proved satisfactory neither to the North nor to the South, 
and at the end of another ten years the drift of events 
brought the final collision between the slave States and the 
national government. 

The third of this illustrious trio is Daniel Webster. His 
father was one of the pioneer first settlers in central New 
Hampshire. By the strictest economy and with great sacri- 
fices he succeeded in giving his son Daniel a collegiate edu- 
cation. Calhoun graduated at Yale College and Webster at 
Dartmouth. 

After Webster graduated from college, and when his 
father was judge, it is related that the father wished Daniel 
to become clerk of the court. It was a position he could 
have if he desired it. The father made known his request to 
Daniel, but the young man did not respond. In the evening 
the elder Webster laid out the whole matter before his son, 
emphasizing the advantages that would accrue from the posi- 
tion, and finally waited for an answer. After a brief silence, 
the vStory goes, Daniel said to his father: "Father, I think I 
will not accept this position. I propose to make the laws, 
not to record them." 

"Well, well!" says the old man, "your mother always 
said that you would make something or nothing, and I guess 
she was about right." 



2l6 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



Webster taught school, studied law, was admitted to the 
bar, was sent to Congress from New Hampshire, and then 
moved to Boston. He represented Massachusetts at Wash- 
ington either in the 
House or the Sen- 
ate most of the time 
for thirty 3'ears. He 
was Secretary of 
State under Harri- 
son and Tyler, and 
while in this posi- 
tion he negotiated 
with Great Britain a 
very important trea- 
ty, fixing the boun- 
daries between the 
United States and 
the British posses- 
sions from the coast 
on the east of Maine 
through the Great 
Lakes and westward 
to the summit of the 
Rocky Mountains. 
This is known as the 

WEBSTER MAKING HIS REPLY TO HAYNE IN THE SENATE. Wcbster- AshburtOU 

Treaty. 
Before South Carolina had undertaken to nullify the tariff 
laws, Webster had taken a strong position against sectional- 
ism and in favor of the Union. In 1830, Mr. Hayne, a sena- 
tor from South Carolina, strenuously opposed the system of 
protective tariffs, asserting that it was unconstitutional. 




CALHOUN — CLAY — WEBSTER. 2 1 7 

This led to a great debate between Hayne and Webster, 
probably the most famous discussion that ever took place upon 
the floor of the United States Senate. Hayne strongly op- 
posed the existing tariff law and insisted upon the supremacy 
of the States, holding that each State had the right to nullify 
any act of Congress which it considered unconstitutional. 

Hayne was a brilliant orator, and his attack upon New 
England was extremely severe. Mr. Webster replied in a 
speech which occupied two days. This speech was consid- 
ered a strong argument against the right of nullification, 
against State sovereignty, and in favor of the Union. Among 
the closing sentences of this famous speech are the following: 

"When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last 
time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him. shining on the 
broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union ; 
on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent ; on a land rent 
with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood ! 
. . . but may I see our flag with not a stripe erased or pol- 
luted, nor a single star obscured; . . . but everywhere, 
spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all 
its ample folds as they float over the sea and over the land, 
and in every wind under the whole heavens, that sentiment, 
dear to every true American heart — Liberty AND Union, now 
mid forever, one and inseparable ! " 

The effect of this speech has been very great upon the 
destiny of our country. It was a masterly performance, and 
perhaps showed greater power in the speaker than any other 
address which he ever inade. President Jackson had soon to 
contend with nullification as a fact, and, although the main 
question was not settled, the collision between the State and 
the Federal governments was postponed. 

Webster has been called " The Expounder of the Constitu- 



2l8 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

tion." One of his speeches in the Senate was entitled "The 
Constitution Not a Compact between Sovereign States." 

In addition to the great speeches made by Mr. Webster 
in Congress, he delivered many famous addresses elsewhere. 
His plea in the Dartmouth College case before the Supreme 
Court of the United States as early as 1818 had stamped him 
as a great constitutional lawyer. A clause in the United 
States Constitution says that no State shall pass any law im- 
pairing the obligation of contracts. The charter of Dart- 
mouth College, Webster argued, was in the nature of a con- 
tract, and the legislature of the State could not set aside that 
contract. This was Webster's argument. The United States 
Supreme Court decided that the action of the State legisla- 
ture, which had reorganized the college and brought into 
existence a new board of trustees, was in the nature of im- 
pairing the obligation of a contract, and therefore was un- 
constitutional. The court therefore set aside that action, 
reaffirmed the old charter, and reinstated the old board of 
trustees. 

The effect of this decision about Dartmouth College went 
far toward limiting the idea of State sovereignty and magni- 
fying the jurisdiction of the Federal Supreme Court, in the 
eyes of the people of the whole country. 

Mr. Webster's two orations at Bunker Hill — the first, June 
17th, 1825, at the laying of the cornerstone of the monument, 
and the second, June 17th, 1843, ^^ the dedication of the 
monument — are masterly efforts, and they alone would have 
placed their author in the front rank of modern orators. 
Another famous oration of Mr. Webster's was delivered at 
Plymouth, December 22d, 1820, the two hundredth anniver- 
sary of the landing of the Pilgrims. It was a grand occasion, 
and the wonderful speech was equal to the occasion. 



CALHOUN — CLAY — WEBSTER. 219 

Mr. Calhoun was a great statesman, who in his day advo- 
cated and represented tlie South Carolina doctrine of nullifi- 
cation and secession. Mr. Clay ranked equally high as a 
statesman and legislator, and his influence was that of a com- 
promiser; by his compromises he was able to put off to a 
future day the conflict which, after all, was inevitable, and 
which came in the Civil War of 1861-65. Mr. Webster was 
the Unionist, and his influence was great in making the 
people of the nation revere the Constitution and idolize the 
Union. 

The Civil War swept away Calhoun's doctrine, and estab- 
lished the fact that the United States is a Nation and not a 
league of States. The influence of Mr. Clay was great at the 
time his gigantic efforts were made, but their effect was only 
to postpone the evil day. The conflict between the two doc- 
trines of national supremacy and vState sovereignty had to 
come. Mr. Webster threw his influence in favor of the 
Union as the greatest good, the only sure preserver of the 
liberties, and promoter of the progress of the people of this 
republic. The Union has been preserved, the national power 
has been strengthened, and the nation to-day is more pros- 
perous, and perhaps has less difficulties threatening its future 
than during the active period of these three great statesmen. 

Describe Clay's Missouri Compromise; his Compromise of 1850. 
Give an accomit of the speeches of Hayne and Webster. 
Tell the story of Calhoun and Nullification. 
Describe the Dartmouth College Case. 

Write accounts of John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, and Daniel Web- 
ster. Give the facts as in this chapter, writing of each man separately. 

We read in this chapter of three sections of the country ; which 
section did each of these three men represent? In what way would 
the Missouri Compromise please the upholders of slavery? How would 
it please the opponents of slavery? In what way did the decision in 
the Dartmoutli College Case influence public opinion concerning 
" State Supremacy"? Have we any great orators to-day? 




CHAPTER XXVIII 

Samuel Houston 



1793-1863 



When the treaty of peace was signed with Great Britain 
in 1783, the number of States in the Union was thirteen. 

When Andrew Jackson was President, fifty years later, it 
was twenty-four. The new States had been admitted one by 
one: Vermont, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, In- 
diana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama, Maine, and Missouri. 

Twelve of these twenty-four States were free, and in 
twelve negro slavery was permitted. The free States formed 
the northern portion of the country, and the slave States 
the southern. The boundary between them was Mason and 
Dixon's line (between Pennsylvania and Maryland), and the 
Ohio River. West of the Mississippi River Missouri allowed 
slavery ; but it was forbidden west and north of that State. 

If we look at a map of the United States as it was then, 
we shall find that the free States had a large region north 
and west of them into which their people could move and 
form more States. .On the other hand, the slave States had 
but little western territory between them and the Spanish 
country or Mexico. 

The people in the South, if they moved west, must go 



SAMUEL HOUSTON. 



221 



across the border into Texas, the nearest of the Mexican 
provinces. This they did in great numbers, until the popu- 
lation in Texas was more than half made up of people from 
the United States. 

Among these settlers was Samuel Houston. He was 
nearly forty years of age when he moved into Texas, intend- 
ing to find some means by which he could bring that province 
into the United States. He 
was a native of Virginia, but 
in early boyhood had gone to 
Tennessee. 

Before he was of age he 
entered the army, and quick- 
ly rose, through the various 
grades, from the rank of a 
private to that of lieutenant. 
Leaving the army, young 
Houston studied law, entered 
politics, was sent to Congress, 
and was chosen governor of 
Tennessee. 

Houston had not been 
long in Texas before he began to make himself known. 
The new settlers turned to him at once as the man best 
fitted to lead them. He was elected general of the Texan 
army. He urged the calling of a convention, which, when 
it met, issued a declaration of independence. 

Mexico was no more willing to lose Texas than England 
had been willing to permit the United States to be free and 
independent. Accordingly it began preparations to compel 
Texas to remain a Mexican province. 

A strong Mexican army under Gen. Santa Anna in- 




' LONE STAR" FLAG OF 
TEXAS. 



222 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

vaded Texas. The first important battle was an assault on 
the Alamo, a fort at San Antonio, Here a small body of 
Texan soldiers was attacked by a force of ten times their 
number. The siege lasted for nearly a month, until the 
Texans were all killed but six. Among the killed were 
David Crockett and General Bowie, who invented the "bowie- 
knife." The six who finally surrendered were killed by the 
Mexicans. 

"Remember the Alamo!" became the war-cry of the 
Texans in their struggle for independence. 

Finally, Houston fought a battle with Santa Anna and 
defeated him. In this engagement the Texan army num- 
bered less than half the Mexican force, but within an hour 
the Mexicans were totally routed, losing six hundred and 
thirty killed and seven hundred and thirty prisoners, includ- 
ing Gen. Santa Anna himself. 

The independence of Texas was now certain, though it 
was not acknowledged by Mexico. A government was estab- 
lished and Houston was elected President, The Republic of 
Texas (" The Lone vStar Republic") at once sought admission 
into the Union. This was strongly opposed in the Congress 
of the United vStates. Finally, after waiting eight years, an 
act was passed annexing Texas (1H45). 

Thus Texas became the twenty-eighth member of the 
Union, — Arkansas, Michigan, and Florida having been pre- 
viously admitted. 

Now there were fifteen slave and thirteen free States, but 
Texas was the last to be admitted with a provision permitting 
slavery. 

A dispute arose about the boundary between Texas and 
Mexico. A large force of the United States army, under 
Gen. Zachary Taylor, entered the disputed territory and was 



SAMUEL HOUSTON. 



223 



soon met by a Mexican army, which had also crossed the 
boundary. A fight took place, and a war, called the War 
with Mexico, followed. General Taylor won several victories 
in northern Mexico, and a year later Gen. Winfield Scott 
captured the city of Mexico. 

A treaty of peace between the two countries was made 




GENERAL SCOTT BEFORE THE CITY OF MEXICO. 



(1848), by which Mexico yielded the boundary which Texas 
claimed ; and by this treaty also the United States purchased 
the region north of the present Mexico, between the Rocky 
Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. This territory was called 
California and New Mexico. Out of it three States and two 
Territories have since been made, besides parts of other 
States. By the addition of Texas and the Mexican Cession, 



224 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



a region larger than the original United States was added to 
the country. 

Now we had a new Western region from which States 
could be made, but no slave State was ever after this ad- 
mitted to the Union. The first part of this new country to 

ask for admission 
was California, 
which framed a con- 
stitution prohibit- 
ing slavery. This 
was but two years 
after the Mexican 
treaty; then the 
province of Califor- 
nia had a very small 
population. 

California's re- 
markable growth 
was due to the dis- 
covery of something 
which almost every- 
body desires. Col- 
umbus sought for it 
when he made his 
first voyage ; Cabot 
thought of it when he sailed across the ocean ; De Soto and 
thousands of other Spaniards made great exertions to find 
it ; John Smith explored the interior of Virginia, seeking it. 
At last, when California had been bought by the United 
States, it was found in great quantities. 

Captain Sutter, a Swiss immigrant, had obtained land in 
the Mexican province of California, and had built a fort 




THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN CALIFORNIA. 



SAMUEL HOUSTON. 225 

where the city of Sacramento now stands. He needed lum- 
ber for his new plantation, and therefore sent one of his men, 
named Marshall, to build a vsaw-mill a few miles up the 
American River. Marshall built a dam across the river, and 
a trench to carry the water to the mill. He noticed one day 
that there were shining specks lying quietly at the bottom of 
the trench. He began to think that they might be gold. 

Saying nothing about what he had found, Marshall took 
the first opportunity to go down to Sutter's fort and have 
a talk with him. The two men began to examine the shin- 
ing lumps. They found them to be heavy — so is gold. 
They were pounded into thin sheets — gold can be hammered. 
Acid would not eat them — it will eat almost everything but 
gold. The men decided that the lumps were gold and that 
they would say nothing about it. 

But the great .secret could not be kept. The news flew. 
Everybody seemed to become crazy for gold. Business was 
neglected ; and all California rushed for the gold-fields. 

Then the news crossed the mountains and the whole 
country was excited. From all the States, especially those 
of the North, men hastened to the " El Dorado." Some went 
by ship around South America; but this was too long a route 
for many. Others went by water to the Isthmus of Panama, 
and, crossing this, again took sail; but many died of sickness 
caused by the malaria of the Isthmus. Most tried the over- 
land route across the plains and over the mountains in emi- 
grant trains. This was a terrible trip ; many perished and 
more turned back discouraged. This was in the year 1849, 
and these pioneers have been called " Forty-niners." 

The gold was there, however, and vast sums were ob- 
tained, though at great expense of money and life. Silver 
was also found in large quantities. , . 

15 



226 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

But after all, though the precious metals are still mined 
in California, we can see to-day that neither gold nor silver 
makes the Pacific Coast so valuable as do her great agricul- 
tural products. Grain and fruit are worth more to human 
beings than all the gold and jewels in the world. 

California was admitted as a free State, because the greater 
part of her people were opposed to slavery. The hopes of 
the slavery leaders were in vain. Ten years later the South 
voted to withdraw from the Union and have a country en- 
tirely composed of slave States. Among them was Texas, 
The governor of Texas at the time (1861) was Samuel Hous- 
ton himself. This maker of a State, who had spent much of 
his life in the effort to bring Texas into the United States, 
could not bear to have his beloved land leave the Union. 

He refused to secede ; and was deprived of his office as 
governor. He never again entered public life, though he 
finally accepted the movement, being unwilling to oppose 
the people of his section. A year or two later he died, still 
disapppointed because his State had left the Union. 

When the Civil War ended, all the seceding States were 
readmitted, and no State is more loyal than Texas, the 
largest in the Union. 

Give an account of the growth of the country. 

Tell the story of Houston, as a United States soldier; as a poli- 
tician ; as a Texan. 

Describe the War for Texan Independence ; the War with Mexico. 
Give accounts of Marshall's discovery; of the " Forty-niners." 
State what Houston thought of the secession of Texas. 

Why did the slavery leaders desire more Southwestern territory? 
Why did the Texans cry, " Remember the Alamo"? Why was there 
opposition to the annexation of Texas? Was it made by the Northern 
or the Southern members of Congress, do you think? What was the 
cause of the War with Mexico? Why did California choose a free con- 
stitution? Why do people desire gold so much? 



SAMUEL HOUSTON. 



227 




OUR COUNTRY'S GROWTH FROM 1845 TO 1848. 



_- _ _ „_^gs, - !-• ' ■;. ^i^r^=- "^'^ "" ■ - : y' ^ \ ' ^ '^'' ! ^ j-*l^ ..' ^-_^.4_'^.8t3WgW| 




CHAPTER XXIX 

Marcus Whitman 

1802-1847 



When we bought California from Mexico it gave us more 
than one thousand miles of sea-coast on the Pacific, but we 
already had six hundred miles of coast farther north. 

That country was called Oregon, and this is the way we 
obtained possession of it. 

Long before the year 1800, Captain Gray, of Boston, dis- 
covered the mouth of a great river, and sailed his vessel over 
the bar at its entrance and fifty or sixty miles up the river. 
Here he landed, traded with the natives, and obtained fresh 
water for his vessel. He took possession of the country in 
the name of the United States, and named the river after his 
ship, the Columbia. 

Some years later, an expedition was sent out by President 
Jefferson to explore the country, under command of Captains 
Lewis and Clark. They crossed the Rocky Mountains and 
went down the Columbia River to its mouth, where they 
passed the winter and returned the next summer. This ex- 
ploring expedition gave us another claim to the country. 

Afterward, a permanent settlement was made at Astoria, 
near the mouth of the Columbia River. This settlement was 



MARCUS WHITMAN. 



229 



made by John Jacob Astor for the purpose of carrying on the 
fur trade with Indians of that section. 

President Monroe purchased Florida from Spain, and in 
the treaty of purchase the boundary between the United 
States and the Spanish provinces was defined. Between the 
Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, the line ran along 
latitude 42°. vSouth of that 




THE OLD "OREGON COUNTRY. 



line were the Spanish prov- 
inces, and to the country 
north of that line Spain 
yielded to us her claims. 

England, however, had 
laid claim to this territory 
and hence a dispute arose 
between us and the British 
government as to which 

should have the Oregon country. Time passed on, and that 
question was not decided for many years. 

Finally, American missionaries were sent out to the 
Oregon country to teach- the Indians the Christian religion. 
Following in the train of the missionaries were many settlers. 
A British company bought the fur business which had been 
established at Astoria, so that many Canadians and other 
subjects of Great Britain also settled in that region. 

Among the American missionaries to the Indians was 
Dr. Marcus Whitman, a native of the State of New York, 
not a clergyman but a physician. With Whitman and his 
wife went Rev. Mr. Spaulding and his wife. Mrs. Whitman 
and Mrs. vSpaulding were the first white women to cross the 
Rocky Mountains. 

After living there six years. Whitman became satisfied 
that the English people in the fur trade were laying plans to 



230 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

secure that territory for Great Britain and themselves. He 
therefore made a most perilous journey on horseback from 
Oregon to the city of Washington and told the President, his 
Cabinet, and members of Congiess what a valuable country 
Oregon was, and urged our government not to consent to part 
with it. 

Then, in the spring following, he returned to Oregon 
with a large company of emigrants, who settled in the valley 
of the Columbia. Others followed in large numbers so that 
the Americans had a majority of the people in that region. 

This "ride for Oregon" by Dr. Whitman was a most re- 
markable one, and has become famous. He consulted with 
his brother missionaries at a meeting held at his station on 
the Walla Walla River, in the present State of Washington. 
They agreed that he should go East, and gave him letters to 
carry. 

Five days later he started on his long and dangerous jour- 
ney with but a single companion. In eleven days he reached 
Fort Hall, in southeastern Idaho, having covered a distance 
of four hundred miles. 

After resting a day or two and taking a guide, he pushed 
forward, not directly east through the South Pass, because in 
that section the snows were very deep and two tribes of 
Indians were at war with each other. He therefore followed 
an old Spanish trail, southeasterly through the corner of 
Utah, across Wyoming and Colorado to vSanta Fe, New 
Mexico. This route added about a thousand miles to the 
length of the journey. 

Throughout this section his sufferings were severe. It 
required a very brave man with great endurance to perform 
such a trip at that early day through that barren country, on 
horseback, in the dead of winter. He must cross wide and 



MARCUS WHITMAN. 



231 



deep rivers, in some cases by fording and sometimes by 
swimming, while his path lay over almost impassable moun- 
tains, hardly yet ever traversed by man. 

When they reached the Grand River they found it about 
a hundred and fifty or two hundred yards wide, frozen over 
about one-third the way across, on each side, and in the cen- 
tre a rapid, angry stream of 
deep water. The guide told 
them that it would be very 
dangerous to cross there. 

But Dr. Whitman was not 
the man to be stopped by any- 
thing short of an impossibility. 
He rode out on the ice to its 
edge, and, although the weath- 
er was intensely cold, he 
called upon his companions to 
push off his horse into the 
stream. They did so, and 
down they went, completely 
under the water, horse and 

rider, but soon came up, and, after buffeting the rapid, foam- 
ing current, reached the ice on the opposite shore, a long 
way down the stream. 

He leaped from his horse upon the ice and soon had the 
noble animal by his side. The other men forced in the pack 
animals, followed his example, and were soon drying their 
frozen clothing by a comfortable fire. 

At another time, near the headwaters of the Arkansas 
River, after traveling all day in a terrible storm, they 
reached a small river for camp, but without a stick of wood 
anywhere to be had except on the other side of the stream, 




'THE RIDE FOR OREGON.' 



232 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

which was covered with ice too thin to support a man 
erect. 

The storm cleared away, and the night bid fair to be in- 
tensely cold ; besides they must have fires to prepare their 
food. The doctor took his axe in one hand and a willow 
stick in the other, laid himself upon the thin ice, and, spread- 
ing his legs and arms, worked himself over on his breast, 
boy fashion, cut his wood, slid it over, and returned in the 
same way. 

Frozen, almost starved, thoroughly worn out, he rested 
several days at Fort Taos and then at Santa Fe in New 
Mexico. He had now really got around the mountains, and, 
changing his course to the northeast, pushed forward to Fort 
Bent, on the Arkansas River. It was late in January, but 
here he overtook a company of mountaineers and traveled 
with them to St. Louis. 

From there he pushed on to Washington, which place he 
reached the 3d of March, 1843. John Tyler was President 
and Daniel Webster was Secretary of State. He told them 
Avhat a valuable country the Oregon region was. The doctor 
had interviews with senators and members of the House of 
Representatives, and then hastened to Boston. 

From Boston he hurried westward and met the emigrants, 

who had gathered in large numbers near Westport, Missouri. 

As soon as the grass was sufficiently grown one party started. 

A week later the second section moved, the third a week later 

still, and the fourth division ten days after that. 

These four bands, during the summer, successfully crossed 
the great western plains, pushed up the valley of the Platte 
River, the North Platte, and the Sweetwater, through the 
South Pass and so on past Fort Hall, Boise City, and over 
the Blue Mountains to the Columbia. This great company 



MARCUS WHITMAN. 



233 



numbered more than eight hundred men, women, and chil- 
dren, with two hundred emigrant wagons, and fifteen hun- 
dred head of cattle. 

On reaching Oregon they spread themselves out princi- 
pally in the valley of the Willamette River. Just as the war 
with Mexico was begun {1846), we made a treaty with Great 
Britain by which she relin- 
quished to us her claims 
south of latitude 49°, and we 
yielded to her the whole 
region north of that line. 

It is painful to be obliged 
to add that Dr. Whitman, his 
wife, and eleven others, were 
massacred by the Indians (in 
1847), ^t his station on the 
Walla Walla River. Whit- 
man was a man of great en- 
durance, courageous beyond 
measure, with a noble soul, 
filled with the loftiest pa- 
triotism. The American 
people should cherish and 
honor the memory of Marcus 
Whitman as one of our great- 
est and most heroic patriots. 

For fifty years that great section has been rapidly filling 
up with industrious and enterprising citizens from the older 
States, until now it contains more than a million inhabitants 
and has become noted for its rich soil and healthful climate, 
which make it one of the finest regions in the whole country. 
It raises great quantities of wheat, rye, potatoes, and hay, 




THE DEATH OF WHITMAN. 



234 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

has valuable minerals, and is capable of supplying the world 
with the best of lumber, of which it has an exhaustlcss quan- 
tity. 

Thus we see how, through the sterling patriotism, in- 
trepidity, and energy of one man, it has happened that three 
States, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, were added to our 
Union, three stars to our flag, and six members to the Amer- 
ican Senate. 

Explain each of the claims that the United States had to Oregon. 

State the reasons for Whitman's eastward journey. 

Give some account of that journey. 

Give an account of the return trip. 

State vi^hat the journey did for the United States. 

Who discovered Oregon? Who explored Oregon? Who first set- 
tled Oregon? Who yielded to the United States her claims to Oregon? 
Who finally signed a treaty by v^^hich the United States fully received 
Oregon? Whitman went to Washington to tell the President how 
valuable Oregon was ; why did not the President know this? 




CHAPTER XXX 

Samuel F. B. Morse 

1791-1872 



Few inventions have proved of greater use or made 
greater changes in the life of man than the invention of the 
magnetic telegraph. It was almost wholly due to the genius 
and skill of Prof. Samuel F. B. Morse. He not only invented 
the instrument, but also planned all the details and put it 
into practical operation. 

Professor Morse was the son of the distinguished geog- 
rapher, Rev. Jedediah Morse, D.D., of Charlestown, Massa- 
chusetts. Like the inventor of the steamboat, he became a 
portrait painter. Like Fulton also, he went to England to 
study his profession. He worked with the famous Wash- 
ington Allston. 

While there, one day Allston took Morse to the studio of 
Fulton's friend, the great painter, Benjamin West. Morse 
was examining a portrait of King George HL, when West 
said, "That is a portrait of the king." "So I observe," re- 
plied Morse, "did he sit here for it?" "Yes," said the 
painter, " and let me tell you a little incident. One day, 



236 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

while he was sitting for me, a box was handed to him, which 
contained the American Declaration of Independence." 

" And what did the king say?" asked Morse. 

"What he said," replied West, "was creditable to his 
heart. When he saw what the document was, knowing that 
I was an American, he looked up at me and said, 'Well, if 
the Americans can be happier under their own government 
than under mine, I am happy.' " 

Morse a few years later was crossing the Atlantic in a 
packet ship, when, in the early part of the voyage, at the 
dinner table, frequent discussions arose in regard to electro- 
magnetism. Dr. Jackson, of Boston, spoke one day of the 
length of wire in the coil of a magnet. Some one asked the 
question whether the passage of electricity through the wire 
was hindered by its length. Jackson replied that it was not. 
He' said that electricity passed instantaneously over any 
known length of wire. 

At this point Professor Morse made this remark : " If the 
presence of electricity can be made visible in any part of the 
circuit, I see no reason why intelligence may not be trans- 
mitted instantaneously by electricity." 

The conversation between others went on, but that one 
new idea had taken full possession of Professor Morse's whole 
being. He reviewed in his mind the experiments of his boy- 
hood, his college studies in electricity, his frequent talks with 
Professor Dana and Professor Renwick. He withdrew from 
the table and went on deck. The idea followed him through 
the whole journey. 

Professor Morse was already an inventor. He had se- 
cured many patents in the United States. He was a man of 
industry, patience, and faith. He was forty years of age. 
The magnetic telegraph he must invent. 



SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. .237 

" If it will go ten miles without stopping," he said, " I can 
make it go around the globe." 

He made the magnet. He fashioned the armature. He 
applied the lever. He attached the wires to the battery. By- 
making the electrciity flow and then by stopping it, the arma- 
ture was drawn up and dropped. The instrument was made. 
Success attended its working. 

He next set himself to invent an alphabet, consisting of 
long and short marks. That alphabet is now in almost uni- 
versal use with the telegraph the world over. 

The invention was complete, but many years must pass 
before it could be put into successful operation. Morse con- 
tinued his studies of the subject, constantly experimenting, 
until he had spent all his money and was really penniless. 
It was the old stor}' of genius contending with poverty. At 
one time he had a little room in a downtown building in the 
city of New York, owned by his brothers, where he lived and 
worked and ate and slept. On one side of the room was his 
turning lathe and bench, and on the other side a little cot. 
He lived on crackers and the simplest food, which, with the 
tea prepared by himself, sustained his life, while he toiled 
night and day to perfect the instrument which he had in- 
vented. 

Finally the decisive day came. It was the third day of 
March, 1843. (This was the very day that Whitman reached 
Washington.) At midnight Congress would adjourn. A 
bill was before the Senate for an appropriation of $30,000 to 
put in operation a telegraph line between Washington and 
Baltimore, a distance of forty miles. The bill had passed the 
House. It was now near midnight. Morse was still waiting 
in the vSenate Chamber. His friends told him it was impos- 
sible for the bill to be reached. Morse himself said after- 



238 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



ward : " This was the turning point in the history of the tele- 
graph. My personal funds were reduced to the fraction of a 
dollar, and, had the passage of the bill failed from any cause, 
there would have been little prospect of another attempt on 
my part to introduce to the world my new invention." 

His friends assured him that it was useless to remain in 

the vSenate Chamber. The 
bill could not possibly be 
reached. He left the Capi- 
tol, retired to his room at 
the hotel wellnigh broken- 
hearted. 

As he came down to 
breakfast the next morn- 
ing. Miss Annie G. Ells- 
worth, daughter of his 
friend, the commissioner 
of patents, met him with a 
smile upon her face and 
exclaimed, " I have come 
to congratulate you, Profes- 
. sor Morse." "For what?" 
said Morse; "you had better commiserate me." "Oh, no," 
she replied, "congratulate you." " For what, pray?" "On 
the passage of your bill. My father told me that in the 
last moment of the session the bill was passed without debate 
or divivsion." Morse promised her that she should dictate the 
first message to be sent over the first line of telegraph that 
was opened. 

When the line was completed and everything was ready. 
Professor Morse sent a note to Miss Ellsworth, saying: 
" Everything is ready, and I am prepared to fulfil my prom- 




MORSE'S FIRST NEWS OF HIS SUCCESS. 



SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. 239 

ise that you should dictate the first dispatch over the wires." 

An answer was immediately returned, and the words which 

it contained — 

" What hath God wrought," 

were the first words ever sent by electric telegraph from one 
city to another. Professor Morse afterward said of this mes- 
sage, " It baptized the American telegraph with the name of 
its author." Morse was at Washington; his friend, Mr. 
Alfred Vail, at Baltimore. Morse caused the instrument to 
tick out the words as given above. Vail received the mes- 
sage and repeated it back again. Then Morse over the wire 
said, " Stop a few minutes." Vail replied, "Yes." 

"Have you any news?" "No." "Mr. Seaton's respects 
to you." "My respects to him." "What is your time?" 
" Nine o'clock, twenty-eight minutes." " What weather have 
you?" "Cloudy." " Separate your words more." "Oil your 
clockwork." 

The first message was sent May 24th, 1844. Two days 
afterward the National Democratic Convention assembled in 
Baltimore to nominate candidates for President and Vice- 
President. The convention nominated James K. Polk for 
President. It then nominated Silas Wright for Vice-Presi- 
dent. 

Mr. Wright was at that time in the Senate. His nomina- 
tion was telegraphed at once by Mr. Vail at Baltimore to 
Professor Morse in the old Senate Chamber in the Capitol at 
Washington. In a few moments the convention was sur- 
prised by receiving a message from Mr. Wright, in which he 
declined the nomination. The president of the convention 
read the dispatch, but it was not believed. The friends of 
Mr. Wright said it was a trick by his enemies to make them 
nominate some one else. The convention adjourned, after 



240 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

choosing a committee to go to Washington and get Mr. 
Wright's answer in person. The committee returned the 
next morning and reported tliat the telegraph had brought 
the answer correctly from Mr. Wright. 

No better advertisement of the invention could possibly 
have been planned. Here were leading men from every 
State in the Union. They were thoroughly convinced of the 
usefulness of the telegraph. 

On their return to their homes they all talked about it, so 
that the fact of the successful operation of the electric tele- 
graph was thoroughly understood at once all over the United 
States , 

So the American electro-magnetic telegraph was perfected 
and put into successful operation. Its use has rapidly in- 
creased, until to-day there is a telegraph station in almost every 
hamlet of the whole country, and indeed in the civilized world. 

In the United States alone we have nearly one million 
miles of telegraphic wire in operation, with about twenty-five 
thousand offices, sending annually nearly seventy-five million 
messages and receiving for the same about twenty-five mil- 
lion dollars. Besides these telegraph lines upon the land, the 
world is now well supplied with ocean cables, with the wires 
laid at the bottom of the sea. Within forty years past these 
cables have increased, until we have now in the world some- 
thing like one hundred thousand miles of cable lines under 
water. 

The history of the ocean telegraph would be of great in- 
terest if we had time to consider it. Through the eiforts of 
Mr. Cyrus W. Field and others, the first cable across the 
Atlantic was laid (in 1858), and within the next two weeks 
about four hundred messa'ges were sent. Then the signals 
became unintelligible. 



SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. 



241 



In 1866 the second Atlantic cable was successfully laid. 
The wire for this cable was twenty-three hundred miles in 
length and weighed more than forty thousand tons. It was 
carried upon the steamship Great Eastern. But the story of 




LAYING AN OCEAN CABLE. 



ocean telegraph cables is too long to be told here. You must 
find these accounts in other books, and it is hoped that you 
will read them with more interest because of the story which 
has now been given you. A very recent incident is told that 
shows something of the greatness of the telegraph. In June, 
1897, a great celebration took place in London, in honor of 
the sixty years that Queen Victoria had been upon the British 
throne. The Queen rode in a procession through streets 
16 



242 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

packed with millions of people. Just as she left the palace 
she pressed an electric button. Instantly this message was 
sent to her colonies all over the world: 

" From my heart I thank my beloved people. May God 
bless them. Victoria, R. I." 

To forty different points in her empire sped the electric 
message. In sixteen minutes a reply came from Ottawa in 
Canada; then one by one the answers came in from more 
remote provinces; until, before the Queen reached London 
Bridge, the Cape of Good Hope, the Gold Coast of Africa, and 
the great continent of Australia had sent responses to her 
message. 

We should pay great honor to Professor Morse and Cyrus 
W. Field for their heroic efforts and the perseverance by 
which they have given to the world the American telegraph 
and the ocean cables. 

Give the circumstances which turned Morse's thoughts to the in- 
vention of the telegraph. 

Give an account of the difficulties which Morse met; of the bill 
in the United States Senate. 

Tell the story of the first message ; of the political convention. 

Give an account of the ocean cable. 

Tell the story about the Queen's message. 

What did the painter West mean by stating that what George III. 
said " was creditable to his heart"? Professor Morse, at the dinner- 
table, used the words "be made visible"; why did he not say "be 
seen"? Why did Morse need an alphabet? Why are most inventors 
poor? Why do telegraph wires most often run by the side of the rail- 
roads? What did the Queen mean when she wrote her name " Vic- 
toria R. I."? 




CHAPTER XXXI 

Abraham Lincoln 



1809-1865 



It is related that Horace Greeley once advised a friend : 
"Go West, young man, go West, and grow up with the 
country." 

By this remark he meant that there were then more op- 
portunities for a young man to rise in the world, to make a 
name for himself, in the West, than if he stayed in the more 
thickly settled portions of the East. 

The history of the United States gives us the stories of 
many young men who have shown that, in their cases at 
least, Greeley's advice was good. 

The West has gradually moved farther and farther west, 
as the Eastern country has become more and more closely 
settled. A hundred years ago the New West was just over 
the Alleghany Mountains; now even the Rocky Mountains 
and the Pacific Coast are almost too old to be called the New 
West. 

The first Western movement of our American people was 
of course across the Atlantic Ocean to these shores, and 
among the earliest Puritan emigrants was one Samuel Lin- 
coln, who settled in the new country about Boston. 

Samuel Lincoln's grandson, Mordecai, moved west to 



244 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



^s^ 



New Jersey, and thence to Pennsylvania when that colony 
was young. Mordecai Lincoln's son John continued the 
western journey — southwest it was — and made a home in 
western Virginia. John Lincoln's son Abraham was one of 
the early pioneers in the territory of Kentucky, where he 
was killed by the Indians. One of his sons, Thomas Lin- 
coln, continued the 
migration after the 
birth of his son Abra- 
ham, and moved 
northwest into Indi- 
ana, and finally into 
Illinois. 

In this State Abra- 
ham Lincoln, who was 
destined to be one of 
the greatest of our 
Presidents, spent his 
manhood, 
Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky early in the pres- 
ent century. His father, who had lived all his boyhood in 
that new region and had met with many of the trials and 
hardships of rude frontier life, was very poor and had almost 
no school education. His mother, whose family also had 
come to Kentucky many years before, had no property, but 
she had received more schooling than her husband had. 

Their home was the ordinary one of a poor Western set- 
tler, a log cabin of one room. It had one door, and a great 
log chimney outside of the house. To such a rude, uncom- 
fortable life was Abraham Lincoln born. 

The boy could have had but little remembrance of his 
Kentucky life, for he was still young when his father moved 




THE HUT WHERE LINCOLN WAS BORN. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 245 

into Indiana. After the arrival of the family, the new house 
was built in the midst of a dense forest. 

Even the seven-year-old boy Abraham used an axe to aid 
in making a clearing. The cabin was ruder than the home 
which they had left in Kentucky. It contained no furniture 
except of home make ; its chairs were boards into which legs 
were fitted ; its bedsteads were made of two upright posts 
with cross poles running from these and inserted into the walls 
of the cabin. The boy's bed was of dry leaves in the loft. 

Plenty of food could be easily obtained ; but it was mainly 
that of camp life. Game and fish they had in great abun- 
dance ; but corn and wheat were scarce. Potatoes were 
almost the only vegetables raised. Food was cooked in a 
very simple and rude manner ; the new settlers had few cook- 
ing-vessels, and grocery stores were far away. 

Soap and candles were always made at home, and clothing 
was never purchased. All cotton clothes had to be made 
from the raw material; the cotton must be raised, picked, 
spun, and woven by the women of the home. Often deer- 
skin trousers, coonskin caps, and home-made moccasins 
formed part of the boy's attire. 

Young Abraharn grew up a strong boy ; he continued to 
wield the axe; he entered into all the work on the farm. 
He ploughed the ground, he harrowed the soil, he mowed the 
grain, he threshed the wheat, he carried the grist to mill. 
He hired out to the neighbors to do anything that was needed, 
the pay going to his father. Not until he was eighteen did 
he earn any money for himself. 

"After much persuasion," as President Lincoln later told 
the story, " I had got the consent of my mother and had con- 
structed a flatboat. A steamer was going down the river. 
We had, you know, no wharves on the Western streams, and 



246 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

the custom was, if passengers were at any of the landings, 
they were to go out in a boat, the steamer stopping and tak- 
ing them on board. I was on my new boat when two men 
with trunks came down to the shore, and, looking at the 
different boats, singled out mine and asked: 

"'Who owns this boat?' 

"I answered modestly, 'I do.' 

" 'Will you take us and our trunks out to the steamer?' 

" 'Certainly,' said I. I was very glad to have the chance 
of earning something and supposed that each of them would 
give me a couple of bits. The trunks were put in my boat, 
the passengers seated themselves upon them, and I sculled 
them out to the steamer. They got on board, and I lifted 
the trunks and put them on the deck. The steamer was 
about to put on steam again, when I called out: 

'"You have forgotten to pay me.' 

" Each of them took from his pocket a silver half-dollar 
and threw it on the bottom of the boat. I could scarcely 
believe my eyes as I picked up the money. I could scarcely 
credit that I, the poor boy, had earned a dollar in less than a 
day ; that by honest work I had earned a dollar. I was a 
more hopeful and thoughtful boy from that time." 

During all his boyhood Abraham strove for an education. 
He obtained little from schools, for he was not able to go to 
school more than a year in all. But he did read; he read 
everything that he could obtain. He not only read the books, 
but came to know them through and through. Very few 
books belonged to the family, but Abraham borrowed from 
his neighbors. One of these books, Weems' " Life of Wash- 
ington," unfortunately got wet and soiled. It required three 
days' labor to make good the loss, but after that the injured 
book belonged to the studious boy. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



247 



Lincoln once said that he had " read through every book 
he had ever heard of in that country for a circuit of fifty 
miles." He would read and cipher after his day's work was 
done ; he would often be found stretched out on the floor, 
reading by the light of the fire ; he found time for reading 
when ploughing, as his horse must be allowed to rest at the 




YOUNG LINCOLN STUDYING BY FIRELIGHT. 



end of the furrows. Every newspaper that came to the vil- 
lage somehow found its way into his hand. 

Time passed on and Abraham grew to manhood. His 
father moved to Illinois, carrying his goods and those of two 
other families in a wagon drawn by four oxen. Abraham 
drove the team and took the opportunity to do a little trading 
business of his own. Before leaving Indiana he spent all his 



248 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

money, about thirty dollars, for notions — pins, needles, 
thread, buttons, knives, forks, and other needful household 
articles. These he peddled at the houses along the road, 
selling them all before he reached the end of his journey, 
and doubling his money by the little business operation. 

Wishing to be more among people, young Lincoln became 
a clerk in a store. Here his natural talent for speechmaking 
was much used, until one day he had an open debate with a 
candidate for office, and was congratulated by his opponent 
for his clever speech. This roused the young man's ambi- 
tion still further, and he began, as he said, to study " sub- 
jects." By the advice of the schoolmaster of the place he 
sought a grammar. Hearing of a copy six miles away, he 
walked to the place and borrowed it. 

After that he spent many evenings at a cooper's shop, 
studying by the light of the fire of shavings. He recited 
from the book, he obtained help from the schoolmaster, and 
finally he said, " If that is what they call a science, I think 
I'll go another." 

Lincoln was very popular among his neighbors, and 
though but a poor, unschooled country boy, he ran for the 
State Legislature from his county, when but twenty-three 
years of age. The Black Hawk Indian War broke out just at 
this time, and Lincoln served through the war as a captain. 
When he returned, it lacked but a few days of election. Lin- 
coln was defeated, as the county gave a majority for the can- 
didate of the other party; in his own neighborhood, however, 
where he was best known, he received two hundred and 
seventy-seven votes out of two hundred and ninety cast for 
representative. 

Lincoln next bought a store, which he kept for a few 
years; he became postmaster; he learned surveying and was 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 249 

appointed deputy surveyor of the county. While in his store 
he bought a barrel of odds and ends of a man who was mov- 
ing farther west, and who wished to make his load a little 
lighter. In this barrel Lincoln found a set of law books, 
called Blackstone's "Commentaries." 

" I began to read these famous works," said he afterward, 
"and I had plenty of time. The more I read, the more 
intensely interested I became. I read them until I devoured 
them." Lincoln was now started on the road to be a lawyer. 

Eleven years after Lincoln's defeat for the Legislature, he 
was again a candidate, was elected, and then served as a rep- 
resentative for eight years. While in the Assembly, he com- 
pleted the study of law and was admitted to the bar. 

Declining another reelection, Lincoln devoted himself to 
the practice of law until he was sent to the House of Repre- 
sentatives at Washington for two years. Returning to Illi- 
nois, he became a leader in the new Republican party, which 
was formed to oppose the further extension of slavery. 

Lincoln was little known outside of his State until he 
became a candidate for the United States Senate. His Dem- 
ocratic opponent was Stephen A. Douglas, and these two men 
spoke daily from the same platforms ; they kept up a long 
debate, day after day, as they traveled over the State. 
Douglas desired to quiet the rising quarrel over the slavery 
question by leaving all discussion of it to the individual 
States and Territories. Lincoln hated slavery, and believed 
that it must not spread into any more States. He stated his 
idea in this way : 

"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe 
this government cannot endure permanently half slave and 
half free." 

Douglas, however, was chosen senator; but, two years 



K 




s^s^ 



250 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

later (i860), Lincoln was elected President of the United 
States. 

For many years the people of the North, where there 
were no slaves, and the people of the South, who held slaves, 
had become more and more alienated from each other. 

The people of the North had very generally come to 
believe in a strong national government. The people of the 
South were in favor of "State rights," making the separate 

States superior to the 
Union. 

The people of the 
North thought that 
slavery was wrong ; the 
people of the South had 
become more and more 
attached to their " pe- 

FORT SUMTER FIRED ON BY SOUTH CAROLINA CUHar iuStitUtlon " aS 

TROOPS. ' 

slave-holding was 
called. Many people in the North felt strongly that slavery 
should be restricted to the States where it then existed. 
The people of the South, on the contrary, held that the en- 
tire Western territory should be open to them and their 
slaves. 

Lincoln was elected President by the Republican party, 
which had declared against any further extension of slavery. 
For ten years the number of free States had been greater 
than that of slave States, and the slavfery leaders saw that 
they could not obtain what they sought. 

They, therefore, now determined to withdraw their States 
from the Union and set up a government of their own. Lin- 
coln was inaugurated President, March 4th, 1861, but before 
that date seven States had seceded and formed a new govern- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



251 



ment, called the "Confederate States of America." This 
government was begun at Montgomery, Alabama; but, when 
four more States had joined them, Richmond, Virginia, was 
made the capital of the Confederacy. 

In April, a Confederate force opened fire upon Fort Sum- 
ter, in Charleston Harbor, which was held by United States 
troops. The next day Major An- 
derson and his small force sur- 
rendered. 

War was thus commenced. At 
the North the excitement was in- 
tense. At the South the enthusi- 
asm was equally great. President 
Lincoln called for seventy-five 
thousand volunteer soldiers. Jef- 
ferson Davis, President of the 
Confederate States, issued his pro- 
clamation for troops. The Civil 
War followed : a war to determine 
whether the United States should 
be supreme and indivisible, or 

whether each State might be superior to the Union and at 
liberty to withdraw from it. 

A terrible strife had begun ; a civil war — the worst form 
of war in which men can engage ; a war in which the soldiers 
facing each other belong to one and the same country ; a war 
in which friends fight against friends, and often brothers 
against brothers. We will not here follow the course of events 
in this war. They will be treated in following chapters. 

Is it possible for us to form any adequate idea of the bur- 
den which Abraham Lincoln carried through those four long 
years ? 




JEFFERSON DAVIS, PRESIDENT OF 
THE CONFEDERACY. 



2 52 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

What broad statesmanship was required ; what clear vision 
was needed; what accurate judgment; what even temper; 
what tender feelings of mercy ; what love for his fellow-men, 
for all humanity; what respect and deference to the con- 
flicting views of the great statesmen and business men of the 
country ; what tact, what skill, what readiness in emergencies ; 
what clear insight; what breadth of outlook; indeed, it is 
impossible to appreciate the various requirements necessary 
in the leader of a great people, the executive of a great 
nation, the commander-in-chief of the armies which included 
a million of men and more, in carrying forward to a success- 
ful conclusion a war of more gigantic proportions than the 
modern world has elsewhere seen. 

But Lincoln was equal to this task. " With malice toward 
none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God 
gives us to see the right," the man of a sad face performed 
his great task with nobleness of purpose, with singleness of 
heart, and with complete success. 

A few months after the battle of Gettysburg, President 
Lincoln made a short speech at the dedication of the national 
cemetery at that place. He closed this famous address with 
this sentence, which is well worthy to be studied by every 
boy and girl, by every man and woman, in the country: 

" It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task 
remaining before us — that we here highly resolve that these 
dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God 
shall have a new birth of fredom, and that government of the 
people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from 
the earth." 

When the war ended, "government by the people" was 
firmly established ; " a new birth of freedom" had come to 
the United States. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



253 



At the murder of Lincoln the whole world mourned. 
Tributes were everywhere paid to his great worth. Among 
them were the burning words uttered in the Spanish Cortes 
by that great statesman, Emi- 
lio Castelar. The closing par- 
agraph of his speech reads as 
follows : 

" I have often contem- 
plated and described Abra- 
ham Lincoln's life. Born in 
a cabin in Kentucky, of par- 
ents who could hardly read, 
born a new Moses in the soli- 
tude of the desert where are 
forged great and obstinate 
thoughts, monotonous like 
the desert, and, like the des- 
ert, sublime; growing up 
among those primeval forests, 
which with their fragrance 
send a cloud of incense, and 
with their murmurs a cloud 
of prayers to heaven ; boat- 
man at eight years, on the 
impetuous current of the 
Ohio; and at seventeen, on 
the vast and tranquil waters 
of the Mississippi, ... he was raised by the nation to the 
Presidency of the Republic. 

" The wood-cutter, the boatman, the son of the great West, 
the descendant of Quakers, humblest of the humble before 
his conscience, greatest of the great in history, ascends the 




STATUE OK LINCOLN FREEING THE SLAVE. 
("BOTH IN WASHINGTON AND BOSTON.) 



2 54 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

Capitol, strong and serene with his conscience and his 
thought; before him a veteran army, hostile Europe behind 
him, England favoring the South, France encouraging reac- 
tion in Mexico, in his hands the riven country ; he arms two 
millions of men, gathers a half-million horses, sends his 
artillery twelve hundred miles in a week, from the banks of 
the Potomac to the shores of the Tennessee, fights more than 
six hundred battles, renews before Richmond the deeds of 
Alexander and of Caesar ; and, after having emancipated three 
million slaves, that nothing might be wanting, he dies in 
the moment of victory; like Christ, like Socrates, like all 
redeemers, at the foot of his work. His work! sublime 
achievement, over which humanity shall eternally shed its 
tears, and God bestow His benediction." 

Describe the route by which the Lincohi family gradually moved 
from England to Illinois. 

Give an account of young Lincoln's homes and his work as a boy. 
Tell his story about the first money that he earned for himself. 
State how Abraham educated himself. 
Give some account of Lincoln's public life. 
State what separated the North from the South. 

Is Greeley's advice good to-day? Why did Abraham grow up "a 
strong boy"? What did he intend to do with his flatboat? Why did 
he have so little schooling? Do you suppose he obtained as much 
from his few books as you do from your many? What two " subjects" 
did Abraham teach himself? How was the United States a " house 
divided against itself"? Why did the Southern States leave the Union? 
Why was Northern excitement and Southern enthusiasm so great after 
the firing upon Fort Sumter? 



^!J5r ^ '•^§-" * *^ ^'^«!»'|' 




Arlington, tie Home of Lee 

CHAPTER XXXII 

Robert E. Lee 

1807-1870 



After Mr. Lipcoln was elected President, and before his 
inauguration, seven States in the extreme South, as we have 
ah^eady seen, seceded and formed a new government, called 
the "Confederate vStates of America." Later, four more 
States seceded and joined this Confederacy. 

Eleven States, therefore, all located in the South, all 
being slave States, had undertaken to withdraw from the 
Union and set up a government of their own. The capture 
of Fort Sumter, a national fort, by vSouth Carolina troops, 
was the act which began the war and occasioned the forming 
of two great armies — the army of the Republic, to maintain 
the unity of the nation, to preserve the Union ; and the army 
of the Confederacy, to uphold the new government in the 
South. 

Then four years of war, embracing great military move- 
ments, added many names to the world's list of distinguished 
soldiers. As the war progressed, one man after another came 
to the front, until before the close of the contest the Union 
Army had developed such men as Gen. U. S. Grant, who finally 



256 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



received the surrender of General Lee and put an end to the 
war; Gen, William T. Sherman, who ploughed such a mighty 
furrow from Atlanta to the sea, through the middle of the 
Confederacy; Gen. Phil. H. Sheridan, the hero of Winchester ; 
Gen. George B. McClellan, who fought the battles of the 
Peninsula; Gen. A. E. Burnside, the 
popular commander of the army of the 
Potomac, who was defeated at Fredericks- 
burg; "Fighting Joe Hooker," who lost 
at Chancellorsville ; Gen. George G. Meade, 
who won the decisive battle of Gettys- 
burg; Gens. George H, Thomas atid W. 
S. Rosecrans of Chickamauga f ame ; Gen. 
WinfieldS. Hancock; Gen. John A. Logan, 
and many other generals whose names are 
worthy to be added to this list. 

The Confederate army, too, brought 
out no less military genius and ability in 
their principal commanders. Many of the 
officers in the regular army who had been 
educated in the Military Academy at West 
Point were from the South and sided with 
the States to which they belonged. As early as August, 
1 86 1, the Confederate Congress created five full generals 
of the Confederate army. These were Samuel Cooper, Al- 
bert Sydney Johnston, Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, 
and P. G. T. Beauregard. 

Beside these distinguished officers on the Confederate side, 
were Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith, who had command beyond 
the Mississippi River; Gen. James Longstreet, one of Lee's 
ablest assistants; Gen. T. J. ("Stonewall") Jackson, a consci- 
entious, able, bold leader; Gen. J. E. B. Stuart, of cavalry 




A CONFEDERATE 
SOLDIER. 



ROBERT E. LEE. 



257 



N (MSYLVANIA 



fame; Gen. A. P. Hill, Gen. Leonidas Polk, and many others 
who were justly celebrated as military leaders. 

Before one year of the war had passed, General Lee was 
ordered to Richmond, and assigned to duty "under the di- 
rection of the President, 
charged with the conduct 
of military operations in 
the armies of the Confed- 
eracy." General Lee for 
more than three years led 
the armies of the South in 
that terrible war, and was 
without doubt the greatest 
general of the Southern 
army, and one of the 
greatest ever produced in 
America. 

He was the son of that 
famous hero of the Rev- 
olution, Gen. Henry Lee, 
known everywhere a s 
" Light-horse Harry." He 
was educated at the Mili- 
tary Academy at West 
Point, where he graduated 
almost at the head of his 

class at the age of twenty-two. He served in the Mexican 
War and subsequently was in command of the Academy at 
West Point. 

In the middle of the first summer of the war came the 
battle of Bull Run, where the Confederates were victorious. 
In March, 1862, the LTnion iron-clad Hloiiitor fought the Con- 
17 




BATTLE MAP SHOWING WHERE THE UNION 
GENERALS FOUGHT LEE. 



258 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



federate iron -clad Merriuiac. Both vessels were novelties, and 
excited great fear and wonder. The Mcrrimac, sheathed in 
railroad iron, steamed up to the Union wooden war- vessels 
in Hampton Roads and began to destroy them. It sunk one 
and ran another aground and burned it. The next morning, 

as the Mcrrimac again 
started out of Norfolk 
harbor to finish her 
task, there suddenly ap- 
peared the new Monitor, 
which the soldiers said 
looked like " a cheese- 
box on a raft." It drove 
off the Confederate 
ironclad and gave a de- 
cisive turn to the naval 
operations of the war, 
and, indeed, began a 
change in all naval 
warfare throughout the 
world. 

During the spring 
and summer following 
this naval battle, came 
the fiercely fought Pen- 
insula Campaign. McClellan commanded the Union forces, 
and Lee the Confederate army. Lee was repulsed at Mal- 
vern Hill and McClellan swung his army safely over to the 
James River. But Lee so ably opposed his adversary that 
the Union army could not successfully operate against Rich- 
mond from that point and was finally withdrawn from the 
Peninsula, to the joy of the vSouth and the disgust of the North. 







GENERAL LEE AND GENERAL JACKSON'S COUNCIL 
OF WAR AT CHANCELLORSVILLE. 



ROBERT E. LEE. 259 

Time would fail to tell of Pope's campaign, where Lee 
was victorious ; of South Mountain and Antietam, where he 
was defeated, all in the summer of 1862 ; of how, in Decem- 
ber, he inflicted terrible disaster upon Burnside at Fredericks- 
burg, and in the next May upon General Hooker at Chancel- 
lorsville, which was perhaps the most severe defeat the Union 
forces experienced. 

After this, Lee determined to invade the North, In June, 
1863, he pushed his army of about eighty thousand men 
across Maryland and into Pennsylvania. This was a bold 
proceeding. Lee was obliged to leave his base of supplies 
and invade the enemy's country. His design evidently was 
to capture Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania, and then 
move on Philadelphia, Baltimore, or Washington. 

The Union army, still under General Hooker, also started 
across Maryland, keeping between the Confederate army and 
the capital. Hooker resigned his command during the march, 
and General Meade was immediately appointed to take his 
place. Lee crossed into Pennsylvania and marched his army 
through the hill-country eastward, toward the town of Get- 
tysburg. The advance of the Union army met Lee's forces 
on the ist of July, just outside of this town. On the first 
three days of July occurred the great battle of Gettysburg. 

The first day's fight was really only a reconnoissance, and 
the Confederates had the advantage. During the next two 
days the Union forces occupied the ground from Gulp's Hill 
past the cemetery, along the line of Cemetery Ridge to Round 
Top. This formed a line of battle shaped like a fish-hook, 
^he crooked end being at Gulp's Hill and the long end of the 
hook at Round Top. 

Lee made three attempts to break the Union lines. First, 
on the right of that line at Gulp's Hill; again, on its left near 



26o FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 




ROBERT E. LEE. 



261 



Round Top; and, finally, on the third day, near its centre, 
where Pickett's charge met its bloody repulse. Each time 
he was unsuccessful, and finally was obliged to withdraw his 
forces and retreat across the Potomac. 

The remainder of the war will be considered in the next 
chapter. It only remains 
for us here to note the life 
of Lee after the war was 
closed. He at once with- 
drew from public affairs, 
not in moody gloom or 
with vexed spirit, but, like 
a great man, acting under 
a firm conviction of duty, 
he betook himself to the 
work of a private citizen. 
He accepted the results 
of the war, and used all his 
influence to restore friendly relations between the two sections. 

He was made president of Washington College in Vir- 
ginia, afterward re-named Washington and Lee University, 
and there he passed the remainder of his life, holding the 
greatest respect and love of all, in his faithful and successful 
work of educating young men. He died on the 12th of Octo- 
ber, 1870, in his sixty-fourth year. 

Tell what you can of the life of General Lee, previous to the Civil 
War. 

Give some account of McClellan's Peninsular campaign. 
Describe the battle of Gettysburg. 

Why did the capture of Fort Sumter begin the war? What pre- 
vious war-experience had some of the generals of the Civil War had? 
Why was the Monitor called a " cheese-box on a raft"? Why did Lee 
attempt to invade the North? Do yot: think it was a wise plan? 
Give your reasons. What did Lee do after the war? 




Flag of 








CHAPTER XXXIII 

Ulysses S. Grant 

1822-1885 

The Civil War brought to the front on both sides many 
great men, who only needed an opportunity to show to the 
world the strength of their minds or the brilliancy of their 
talents. General Grant is a conspicuous example. A man's 
surroundings and opportunities have much to do with the 
reputation which he is enabled to make. 

When the war broke out Grant was in the full strength of 
his manhood, being then thirty-nine years old. He was a 
native of Ohio, and his father was a farmer and a tanner. 
He had the good fortune therefore to be brought up on a 
farm, which is the best place in the world for a boy. He 
graduated at West Point Military Academy when he was 
twenty-one years of age. 

Previous to the Civil War, Grant's career was varied. In 
the Mexican War he cominanded a company, acted as quar- 
termaster, as adjutant of the regiment; and imder General 
Scott performed a variety of daring services. In 1853 he 
was made captain, and the next year resigned his command, 



ULYSSES S. GRANT. 



263 



and with his family settled on a small farm at St. Louis. 
One year before the war began, he removed to Illinois and 
acted as clerk in his father's store, 
where he sold hardware and leather. 

As soon as he heard that Fort 
Sumter had been captured, he took 
a strong stand for the Union and 
at once raised a company of volun- 
teers, drilled them, and took them to 
Springfield, the capital of the State. 
He was appointed colonel of an 
Illinois regiment and entered the 
field of active service in Missouri. 
In August he was made brigadier- 
general, and in September he seized 
Paducah, in Kentucky, and fortified 
it. Early the next year, 1862, he 
captured Fort Henry, and besieged 
Fort Donelson. General Buckner, 
who was then in command of the 
fort, sent a flag of truce to Grant, 
asking what terms he would give if 
he would surrender. Grant immedi- 
ately returned this brief and historic 
reply: 

" No terms except an uncondi- 
tional and immediate surrender can be accepted, 
pose to move immediately upon your works." 

Buckner surrendered with fifteen thousand men, and the 
Confederate line of defence was broken. After a little the Con- 
federates fell back to Corinth, where in April Grant fought 
the great battle of Shiloh. The Confederates retreated, and 




A FEDERAL SOLDIER. 



i pro- 



264 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

the Union army held the country from Memphis to Chatta- 
nooga. 

Then came the siege of Vicksburg, where Grant showed 
great generalship. Finally, on the 4th of July, 1863, Gen- 
eral Pemberton surrendered Vicksburg to Grant, with his 
entire force of more than thirty thousand troops, sixty thou- 
sand muskets, and a large amount of military stores. The 
surrender of Vicksburg and the repulse of Lee at Gettysburg, 
coming as they did at the same time, may be considered the 
turning-point of the war. Grant was now made a inajor-gen- 
eral and received from Congress a gold medal. 

Grant had clearly proved his superior ability as a general, 
and in March, 1864, he was made lieutenant-general and 
given command of all the armies of the Union. He now 
undertook to march his army through the Wilderness toward 
Richmond. 

What a terrible campaign that was ! In a single month 
the two armies lost perhaps ten thousand killed, fifty thou- 
sand wounded, and ten thousand missing. Grant transferred 
his army to the James River and from that time until the 
following spring, for nearly a year, the contest was desperate. 
At length in April, 1865, Lee and his forces left Richmond, 
and Grant's army entered the Confederate capital. Lee now 
attempted a forced march toward the South, but, being 
hemmed in by Grant's army and Sheridan's cavalry, he sur- 
rendered his army to Grant (April 9th, 1865), at Appomattox 
Court House. 

Meantime General Sherman had made his famous march 
through Georgia. General Johnston yielded to Sherman, 
and Gen. Kirby Smith surrendered his forces west of the 
Mississippi River. The war was ended. 

The President issued a proclamation of amnesty, and Lee 



ULYSSES S. GRANT. 



265 



applied by letter, asking to be included in this amnesty. 
Grant had shown his noble nature by the very liberal terms 
which he had given to Lee's army at the surrender. He had 
allowed them to retain their horses, side-arms, and baggage, 







GRANT IN THE CAMPAIGN OF THE WILDERNESS, 




266 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

and had simply taken from them a promise that they would 
no longer contend against the United States government. 
He also furnished them with a large amount of rations and 
supplies. Grant indorsed Lee's letter applying for amnesty, 
as follows: 

" Respectfully forwarded, through the Secretary of War, 
to the President, with the earnest recommendation that the 
application of Gen. Robert E. Lee for am- 
nesty and pardon be granted him." 

Now that the war was over, let us see 
what were its results. We must remember 
that eleven States withdrew from the LTnion, 
formed a Confederacy of their own, and at- 
tacked Fort Sumter. The United States 
government refused to recognize this sep- 
GENERAL SHERMAN, aratlou, aud considered the armed attack 
as a rebellion to be put down by arms. President Lincoln 
called for volunteers to enforce the laws of the Union in 
those States. When the war ended in the victory of the 
United States, the theory of secession was overthrown; 
henceforth the United States is a Nation, one and indi- 
visible. 

Although the war was fought for the preservation of the 
Union, another result followed from it. President Lincoln 
issued the Emancipation Proclamation, in the midst of the 
war, declaring the slaves in those States that were still 
in arms against the Union to be free. It was then clear 
that if the United States was victorious, slavery would 
cease. 

Soon after the end of the war, an amendment to the 
national Constitution was adopted, forever forbidding slavery 
in any part of the United States. Lincoln was right when he 



ULYSSES S. GRANT. 



267 



said, long before : " This government cannot endure perma- 
nently half slave and half free." It is now all free. 

These results came from the war; but at what terrible 
cost ! We cannot tell of the great numbers that were killed ; 
of the greater numbers that were wounded ; of the suffering 
and sorrow in thousands of homes. We cannot tell of the 




, CIVIL WAR 

i&ei iB«s 

L^ysl Slates and Tfrr 
Southern Confedei 



enormous expense ; the heavy taxes, both then and now, for 
we still spend vast sums in pensions to our soldiers, and to 
pay the interest on the debt which grew out of the war. We 
cannot tell of the fearful injury to the States which seceded ; 
for they bore the full brunt of the war and it left them in 
poverty. 

A third of a century has passed since the surrender at 
Appomattox. The wounds of the great war have now well 
healed. The United States has had a prosperous history. 



268 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

North, East, West, and South have grown with wonderful 
rapidity. 

Not the least remarkable has been the history of the 
Southern States. They have risen from their defeat. They 
lost their all ; but they began again and have regained pros- 
perity. The United States government treated the van- 
quished with great mildness. No one was put to death at 
the end of the war; but few were imprisoned, and most of 
those only for a brief time ; all were freely pardoned, and 
all their former rights were restored to them, at least, if they 
so desired. 

The Southern States are to-day as loyal to the govern- 
ment as the Northern ; their response to the call of the Presi- 
dent of the United States to assist in freeing Cuba was quick 
and enthusiastic. The United States are now united. 

All honor has been given to the heroes of the Civil War. 
First and foremost, the country loves the memory of Abraham 
Lincoln, " Our Martyred President," who, but a few days after 
the surrender, died from the shot of an assassin. 

General Grant received the highest honors that our coun- 
try has ever given to any man. He was the first, after Wash- 
ington, to be made general of the United States Army. He 
was twice elected President. He made a tour around the 
world as a private citizen, and he was everywhere received 
as one of the great men of the world. He was honored by 
kings and emperors, by the Czar and the Mikado, by queens 
and presidents. 

Yet, when he returned to the United States, he had not 
been made proud by his honors; he remained what he had 
always been, a modest, humble, quiet, plain American citi- 
zen. After a long illness, during which the entire country 
read with bated breath, day by day, the news from his bed- 



ULYSSES S. GRANT. 



269 



side, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant died, at Mount McGregor, New 
York, July 23d, 1885. 

Twelve years after his death, when his magnificent tomb 
in New York was completed, the whole nation took part in 
the ceremonies of laying his body in its final resting-place. 

Tell the story of Grant as a boy and a young rnan ; at the opening 
of the war; at Fort Donelson ; at Vicksburg; in Virginia; on his tour 
around the world. 

State the results of the war. 

Describe the present condition of the country. 

Why is a farm " the best place in the world for a boy"? How long 
did it take Grant to get to Richmond? How long was the Civil War? 
Name ten generals mentioned in this and the preceding chapter ; state 
on which side each fought. What is a " proclamation of amnesty"? 
What do you think was the best point in Grant's character? 





TheReJT) Tennessee 
altbckin^ the Ha-rt/ord 



SUlut h, St Ci^iJ.r,, M.J^on3,„.r« NevjYork 



FederaJ Fleet s^il:r)v^ 
nto Mobile BaLy<!>« 



CHAPTER XXXIV 

David G. Farragut 



1801-1870 



Naval service seems to run in some families ; like father, 
like son. Many of our distinguished naval commanders were 
vsons of naval officers. Admiral Farragut was not an excep- 
tion to this rule. His father was George Farragut, who took 
part in the Revolutionary War, and was a friend and com- 
panion of General Jackson. At one time Admiral Farragut 
told this story about his boyhood : 

" When I was ten years of age I was with my father on 
board a man-of-war. I had some qualities that I thought 
made a man of me. I could swear like an old salt, could 
drink as stiff a glass of grog as if I had doubled Cape Horn, 
and could smoke like a locomotive. I was great at cards, 
and fond of gaming in every shape. At the close of dinner 
one day my father turned everybody out of the cabin, locked 
the door, and said to me : 



DAVID G. FARRAGUT. 



271 



"'David, what do you mean to be?' 'I mean to follow 
the sea.' 'Follow the sea! yes, to be a poor, miserable, 
drunken sailor before the mast, be kicked and cuffed about 
the world, and die in some fever hospital in a foreign clime.' 
'No,' said I, 'I'll tread the quarter-deck, and command as 
you do.' 'No, David; no boy ever trod the quarter-deck 
with such principles as you have, and such habits as you 
exhibit. You'll have 
to change your whole 
course of life if you 
ever become a man.' 

" My father left me 
and went on deck. I 
was stunned by the re- 
buke, and overwhelmed 
with mortification. 'A 
poor, miserable, drunk- 
en sailor before the 
mast! be kicked and 
cuffed about the world, 
and die in some fever 

hospital!' That's my fate, is it? I'll change my life, and 
change it at once. I will never utter another oath; I will 
never drink another drop of intoxicating liquor; I will never 
gamble. I have kept these three vows to this hour. ^Shortly 
afterw^ard I became a Christian. That act was the turning- 
point in my destiny." 

In December, 1861, Farragut was summoned to Washing- 
ton. Soon after he wrote a hurried note to his wife: " Keep 
your lips closed and burn my letters, for perfect silence 
is to be observed — the first injunction of the Secretary. 
I am to have a flag in the Gulf, and the rest depends 




YOUNG FARRAGUT'S LESSON FROM HIS FATHER. 



2/2 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



upon myself. Keep calm and silent. I shall sail in three 
weeks." 

The expedition consisted of twenty-one vessels. It 
sailed away from Hampton Roads early in February, 1862. 
Its design was to capture the city of New Orleans. 

General Butler at the same time sailed for Ship Island 
with fifteen thousand troops. Farragut sent a boat up the 

river one dark night to 
cut the chains which the 
Confederates had put 
across the river, and 
make an opening for the 
fleet to pass through. 

At two o'clock in the 
morning of April 23d, 
the fleet of thirteen ves- 
sels moved up the river. 
They succeeded in pass- 
ing the forts after a 
most desperate battle. 
They destroyed the 
Confederate fleet, and, 
~ - - ~"^ two days after. New 

FARRAGUT's MORTAR BOATS SHELLING NEW Orlcaus surrcndcred. 

Then General Butler 
took command of the city, and Farragut with his fleet sailed 
up the Mississippi until it met the Mississippi gunboat fleet 
from Memphis. 

This capture of New Orleans was a brilliant victory. 
Farragut's flagship, the Hartford, during her nineteen 
months of service had been struck by shot and shell two hun- 
dred and forty times. On his return home for refitting his 




DAVID G. FARRAGUT. 273 

ship, Farragut was received with, great honor, and the Union 
League Club of New York presented him a Avith a beautiful 
sword with gold and silver scabbard, the hilt set in brilliants. 

Early in 1864 Farragut was again sent to the Gulf to 
attack the defences of Mobile. The object, particularly, 
was to stop the blockade runners, which were constantly 
going in and out through Mobile Bay. Farragut issued gen- 
eral orders containing the most minute instructions for every 
case. Perhaps no commander was ever so completely mas- 
ter of every detail as Farragut, unless it was his young Lieu- 
tenant Dewey, whom he particularly commended, and who, 
at Manila, thirty-four years after, showed the same qualities. 
He could have taken the place, and performed the duties, of 
any man in the fleet. 

He had seven sloops of war, four iron-clad monitors, and 
six steamers to keep up a flank fire upon the forts, and now 
on the 5th of August, 1864, before daylight everybody in the 
fleet was astir, and at 5 :30 the signal was given to advance. 
Then came a terrible cannonade. The fleet shelled the forts; 
the forts shelled the fleet. 

The smoke was intense. In order to see over it. Commo- 
dore Farragut placed himself in the rigging. As the smoke 
increased he went up higher and higher. Captain Drayton, 
to prevent his falling to the deck in case he should be 
wounded, sent up a quartermaster with a rope, which was 
made fast to the shrouds, passing around the admiral's body. 

The fleet sailed three miles up the bay, when a Confeder- 
ate ram attacked the fleet with tremendous energy. Then 
ensued a singular but desperate contest. The ram surren- 
dered. A few days later all the forts capitulated. 

Farragut's health was now failing and he was ordered 
home. The people of New York presented him a purse of 
18 



274 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

$50,000. He was made vice-admiral and a year or two later- 
Congress created the grade of admiral, a grade unknown 
before in the United States navy, and the rank was given to 
Farragut. 

After the war Farragut made a long cruise in European 
waters, visiting the principal capitals of Europe. He was 
everywhere received with the greatest honors. One of the 




FARRAGUT LASHED TO THE RIGGING IN THE BATTLE OK MOBILE BAY. 



DAVID G. FARRAGUT. 2/5 

most interesting incidents of the cruise was a visit to the 
island of Minorca, the home of Farragut's ancestors, where 
the whole population turned out to welcome him. He died 
in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1870. 

Farragut was a Virginian like Lee. But while Lee felt 
that his first duty was to his State, Farragut felt that his duty 
was to the nation. He opposed the secession of Virginia 
with all his might, and this is the story he told one day of 
how he left the State in '61 : 

" I was told by a brother officer that the State had seceded, 
and that I must either resign and turn traitor to the govern- 
ment which had supported me from childhood, or I must 
leave this place. Thank God, I was not long in making my 
decision. I have spent half of my life in revolutionary coun- 
tries, and I know the horrors of civil war, and I told the peo- 
ple what I had seen and what they would experience. They 
laughed at me and called me 'granny' and 'croaker'; and I 
said, 'I cannot live here, and I will seek some other place 
where I can live.' I suppose they said I left my country for 
my country's good, and, thank God, I did." 

When the war was over, the Union Club of Boston gave a 
dinner to the admiral, at which Oliver Wendell Holmes read 
one of his happiest poems, a few lines of which may be 
quoted here : 

" Our stout old commodores, 

Hull, Bainbridge, Porter— where are they? 
The answering billows roll, 

Still bright in memory's sunset ray, 
God rest each gallant soul ! 

A brighter name must dim their light, 
With more than noontide ray — 

The Viking of the River Fight, 
The Conqueror of the Bay. 



2^6 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

I give the name that fits him best, 
Ay, better than his own, 

The Sea-king of the sovereign West, 
Who made his mast a throne." 

Tell Farragut's story about his boyhood. 

Give accounts of the capture of New Orleans ; of the great naval 
battle near Mobile. 

Describe Farragut's speech at Norfolk. 

Decatur, Porter, and Farragut were all sons of naval officers; did 
that fact aid them in their life-work.' Did Farragut's father know 
with certainty what would be his son's life if he did not change? 
Why did Farragut write to his wife to keep " perfect silence"? What 
were " blockade runners"? Was Farragut safe in his high position on 
the mast? Why was Farragut called a " croaker"? Whom did Holmes 
call the " Viking of the River Fight," the " Conqueror of the Bay," the 
" Sea-king of the sovereign West, who made his mast a throne"? 
Explain the reason for each expression, if possible. 




CHAPTER XXXV 

Horace Mann 

1796-1859 



Near the close of the last century, on a small farm in 
Franklin, Massachusetts, Horace Mann was born. He was a 
thoughtful and studious boy. From the age of ten until he 
was twenty he had not more than six weeks' schooling in any 
one year. The teachers in these schools he afterward des- 
cribed as "very good people, but very poor teachers." His 
school-books he earned by braiding straw. 

When he was twenty years old, he came under the influ- 
ence of a schoolmaster who was a real scholar, a genius who 
could appreciate rare mental power when he found it in his 
pupils. This traveling pedagogue encouraged young Horace 
to prepare for college and obtain a liberal education. His 
pupil entered into the plan with an intense zeal, so that in a 
few months he was admitted to advanced standing in Brown 
University. He was graduated from college in 1819, and on 
commencement day he delivered an oration upon " The Pro- 
gressive Character of the Human Race." He taught Latin 
and Greek at his alma mater, studied law, and was admitted 
to the bar in 1823. 



2/8 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

He was a member of the House of Representatives in 
Massachusetts from 1827 to 1833, and served in the State 
Senate for the next four years. Through his personal exer- 
tions Massachusetts established a Board of Education, and 
Mr. Mann was at once put at its head as "Secretary." Dur- 
ing his long service, in addition to his other duties, he wrote 
the annual reports of the board to the people of the State. 
These reports discussed in a forcible manner many new ques- 
tions of education, and they had a great influence in elevating 
the standard of public sentiment and of school instruction, not 
only in the State of Massachusetts, but throughout the whole 
country. He made a tour in Europe, especially noting all 
the good features of the schools of Germany, and then gave 
the result of his observations to his countrymen. 

The earnestness of purpose and tremendous industry 
which he threw into his work could not fail to produce great 
results. In speaking of his service at a later period, he said : 
" I labored in this cause an average of not less than fifteen 
hours a day, and from the beginning to the end of this period 
(eleven years) I never took a single day for relaxation, and 
month after month together passed without my withdraw- 
ing a single evening to call upon a friend." It was his de- 
sire for better schools in America that made him work like 
this. 

While Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education 
he brought to pass a complete revolution of public sentiment 
regarding popular education. It was Horace Mann who, by 
advocating new methods and new plans — at first almost alone 
and unaided — started the great movement in public-school 
education in this country which has continued to the present 
day. There are many things which we call American, in dis- 
tinction from others called European. Nothing, however, is 



HORACE MANN. 



279 



more strikingly American than our system of public edu- 
cation . 

The New England settlers very early began to establish 
schools. Education was dear to their hearts. In 1639 the 
plantation at Dorchester established a school to be supported 
by taxation. This was the beginning of the American system 
of public schools. " The property of the State should be 
taxed to educate the children of the State." To-day this 




AN OLD-TIME COUNTRY SCHOOL-ROOM. 



principle is applied in every State and every Territory of the 
Union. On it depends, in large measure, the strength of our 
republican institutions. 

In the early days, as might be supposed, the schools were 
very crude. Most of the people were spread over the country 
upon farms. The towns were divided into school districts, 



28o FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

and, after a time, each district managed its own school affairs. 
The schoolhouses were small, of but one room, and generally 
located at "the forks of the roads." They might be twenty 
or twenty-five feet square, with a long desk on each of three 
sides and a bench of white-oak or hard-pine plank in front of 
it. Upon the fourth side was a huge fireplace, with a stone 
chimney. Wood was plenty, and sometimes the "backlog," 
the "forestick," and the pile of wood between them would 
measure at least a quarter of a cord. As the districts became 
better settled, more benches were added, and, at last, stoves 
supplanted the fireplaces. 

Here the " master" kept the school from six to twelve 
weeks in the winter, and the "mistress" an equal length of 
time in the summer. Queer reading lessons and queer ways 
of spelling they had in those days. Webster's " Blue-back" 
Spelling Book was in general use at the beginning of this 
century. It had reading as well as spelling lessons, one of 
the former being the familiar story of the old man who found 
a rude boy in his apple tree. 

They had curious ways of conducting a spelling-lesson. 
The word " able" wbuld be spelled thus : " A-by-self, a ; b-l-e, 
ble — able." "Aaron" would be spelled in this way: "Great 
A, little a; r-o-n, ron — Aaron." Great attention was given 
in the spelling to the pronunciation of the syllables, and 
sometimes a little extra explanation would be thrown in. 

In some places the word "abomination" would be spelled 
after this fashion: "A, there's your a; b-o-m, bom, there's 
your bom, there's your abom ; i-n, in, there's your in, there's 
your bomin, there's your abomin; a, there's your a, there's 
your ina, there's yourbomina, there's your abomina; t-i-o-n, 
tion, there's 5^our tion, there's your ation, there's your ina- 
tion, there's your bomination, there's your abomination." 



HORACE MANN. 



2«I 



In those days the spelling school was a great institution. 
It was, for the whole neighborhood, equal to a theatrical 
play. Great fun the young people had. Sometimes a 
school district would be pitted against the . next school 
district, and, as the master "put out" the words, the contest 
would consist in a severe trial to see which district would 
be " floored" first. 

The spellers from one district would be ranged along one 
side of the area and those from the other district along: the 
other side. The first word would be given to the first speller 
on one side, the next word to the first speller on the other side, 
then to the second speller, and so on. If one missed a word, 
he must immediately take his seat. Rapidly the ranks would 
be thinned, and by and by the contest would be carried on 
perhaps between two spellers, one on each side. Then, as 
one missed and the other was victorious, a mighty shout would 
rise up. Many would spend a great amount of time during 

the weeks preceding the 
spelling school in prepar- 
ing for the contest. 

At the spelling school 
" pieces" would be spoken 
also, and after the school 




THE RIDE HOME AFTER "SPELLING SCHOOL." 



282 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

was over would come games, and, if the sleighing was good, 
an extended sleigh-ride, on the principle that the longest way 
around was the nearest way home. 

In those old times everybody had very positive ideas upon 
the question of " school discipline." A woman might keep 
school in the summer, when only the younger scholars went 
to school ; but in the winter it was understood that all the bisf 
boys in the neighborhood would attend school, and therefore 
the committee must find a man that would be unquestionably 
the master. He must be able to prevent the big boys from 
defying his authority, throwing him out of the window, pitch- 
ing him into a snowbank, or riding him on a rail. All of 
these shameful performances have been known to be executed 
in the early days in some of the New England school districts. 

Under such conditions, of course, there would occasionally 
be found a tyrannical school-master, one who would make in- 
cessant use of the " ferule," who would keep some stout hick- 
ory sticks on hand prepared for an emergency, who would 
sometimes bump the heads of two boys together, who would 
lift up little girls by their ears until they bled. Compared 
with these coarse and brutal ways on the part of both the boys 
and the master, the delightful relations of our modern school- 
rooms seem to belong to a different world. 

The studies pursued in the schools of those early days 
consisted mainly of the three R's — "Readin', Ritin', and 
'Rithmetic." The writing book was usually made of six 
sheets of foolscap paper with a brown-paper cover sewed on, 
and the copies were set by the master or mistress, at the top 
of the page. The writing was done with a quill pen, and the 
experienced teacher always took great pride in his ability to 
make and mend pens. A sharp penknife was needed. The 
new quill must be scraped on the outside to remove the thin 



HORACE MANN. 



283 



film, a sort of cuticle which enveloped the quill proper. One 
dexterous stroke cut off what was to become the underside 
of the pen. A single motion of the knife made the vSlit, 
Two quick stroke^ removed the two upper corners, leaving 
the point. Then came the most delicate part of this mechan- 
ical process. The point of the pen was placed upon the 
thumbnail of the left hand. The knife was deftly guided so 
as to cut off the extreme end of the pen directly across the 
slit, leaving a smooth end, not 
too blunt so as to make too 
large a mark, and not too fine 
so as to scratch. The pen was 
then ready for use. 

All this is now long past. 
The old method of teaching, 
the old system of discipline, 
the old schoolhouse, and the 
course of study which included 
only the three R's, have all 
given place to modern and im- 
proved methods. 

Graded schools ; houses 
properly lighted, heated, and 
ventilated ; courses of vStudy en- 
riched and refined ; true meth- 
ods of presenting the subjects to be studied; mantial training 
and physical training — these all are parts of the modern system. 

Teachers are now selected, not because of their physical 
ability to "keep school," but because they have been trained 
to teach, have been carefully taught how to present the sub- 
jects properly to the child's mind; these are the teachers of 
to-day. 




A MASTER MENDING A QUILL PEN. 



284 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

Our school system, however, did not begin at the bottom 
and work upward, but it began at the top and reached down- 
ward. Harvard College, in Massachusetts, was founded in 
1636; William and Mary College, in Virginia, in 1693; Yale 
College, in Connecticut, in 1700; and by the middle of the 
eighteenth century, three others had been started — King's 
College, now Columbia University, in New York; Princeton 
University, in New Jersey; and the University of Pennsyl- 
vania. 

The colleges required preparatory schools. The Boston 
Latin School was begun in 1635, and other preparatory schools 
followed from necessity. About a hundred years ago, private 
academies were established in large numbers, to prepare 
young men for college and for business life. During the first 
half of the nineteenth century these academies played a very 
important part in the history of education. But about the 
middle of this century Massachusetts by law made public high 
schools compulsory in all her larger towns. These high 
schools soon spread into all the States; they have displaced 
many of the private academies, and have brought " secondary 
education," as it is called, within the reach of all the people. 

Within the last half of the nineteenth century, vast sums 
of money have been given for the endowment of colleges 
throughout the United States. Probably in no part of the 
world or in any preceding age have such large sums of money 
been given for educational purposes as have been contributed 
by individuals and voted by the people within the last fifty 
years to endow institutions of learning in our country. 

In another direction extraordinary advance has been made 
— namely, in the education of women. Before this country 
obtained its independence, but little attention had been given 
to the education of girls. They were taught at home to cook, 



HORACE MANN. 285 

to sew, to embroider, but their school privileges were very 
meager. Progress in the education of young women was 
slow indeed, until within quite recent years. But for half 
a century our people have been awake to the duty of giving 
to girls every chance for learning that boys enjoy. 

It has been demonstrated that women learn the arts, sci- 
ences, and literature as easily, as rapidly, and as thoroughly 
as men do. Many colleges have been established for women, 
and they are all full to overflowing. vSome of the older as well 
as the newer universities have opened their doors to women 
on equal terms with men. Young women are now in large 
numbers taking post-graduate courses and becoming proficient 
in various and diverse lines of study. 

We have special schools for nearly every pursuit requir- 
ing great skill. Normal schools educate our teachers. Tech- 
nical schools educate our mechanics, engineers, bridge-build- 
ers, mining engineers, and architects. There are schools 
for manual training and physical training; schools for the 
blind, the deaf, and those otherwise defective; schools in the 
prisons, night schools, and summer schools, and, indeed, 
schools of all sorts and for all purposes. 

In England, Germany, and France the universities have 
their special excellences. But the American system of edu- 
cation, including public schools, State universities, colleges, 
technical schools, and others, all combine to furnish the edu- 
cation which is best adapted to the people of America. We 
have made rapid advance in science, in the arts, in the com- 
forts of life, in our industrial pursuits, and especially in our 
marvelous inventions and manufactures; but probably our 
educational system shows the most wonderful achievements 
of all. The progress of our schools and our teaching has 
been so rapid, so varied, so universal, and so dear to the 



286 



FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 




HORACE MANN. 287 

hearts of all the people, that it stands out as the most remark- 
able and characteristic thing in America. 

With the enthusiasm for education in the schoolroom, 
the love of books has grown among the people, and our coun- 
try has produced many able writers. 

Once, long ago, Sidney Smith, a sharp-tongued English 
critic, asked contemptuously, " Who reads an American book ?" 
Now the whole reading w^orld reads American books. Begin- 
ning with Washington Irving, who wrote so charmingly about 
Spain and old New York, and gave us " Rip Van Winkle," we 
have had a splendid company of such historians as Bancroft, 
Prescott, Parkman, Motley, and MacMaster; of such poets 
as Bryant, Longfellow, Holmes, Whittier, Lowell, Emerson, 
Poe, Lanier, Whitman ; such story-tellers as Cooper, Haw- 
thorne, Cable, James, Howells, Mrs. Stowe, Mrs. Phelps 
Ward, Mrs. Hodgson Burnett, Crawford, and Davis; and such 
humorous writers as " Artemus Ward," "Mark Twain," and 
the narrator of " Uncle Remus" ; besides scores of other 
authors who are scarcely less eminent. 

Americans love to read. We have a public library sys- 
tem unmatched in the world. Nearly every city has its great 
library, and as fast as the towns grow in culture they put up 
a public library building, where books are free to all the citi- 
zens. The Boston Library is one of the wonders of our coun- 
try. The Congressional Library in Washington is the most 
sumptuous house for books in the world. Simple, but of vast 
influence are the book clubs and the traveling libraries which 
now extend the privilege of literature to the humblest villages. 
Local bands for reading and study, like the Chautauqua cir- 
cles, and the countless women's clubs, carry the impulse of 
education farther and farther. 

But this universal impulse is due to the American public 



255 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUMTKY. 




RAISING THE SCHOOLHOUSK FLAG. 



HORACE MANN. 289 

school. Here is the origin of that spirit of enlightenment 
and liberty and justice which makes our people the greatest 
and best nation of the earth. The national flag, that now 
floats over nearly every schoolhouse in the land, is a fitting 
rerpinder to our fourteen millions of pupils that the school 
has made our country what it is and that the children now 
under its folds are to make America what it shall be. 

We admire our patriot statesmen and our patriot soldiers. 
Just as admirable is the patriot school te cher, who is putting 
heart and soul into the training of future citizens, and who 
leads their voices as they say : " I pledge allegiance to my flag 
and to the Republic for which it stands — one Nation, indi- 
visible, with liberty and justice for all." 

Tell the story of Horace Mann : as a boy ; as a young man ; as an 
educator. 

Explain the meaning of " American system of public education." 

Describe the early schoolhouse. 

Give an account of a spelling school. 

Contrast the early schools with our modern schools. 

What is a "liberal education"? What is meant by " supported by 
taxation"? What are " forks of the roads"i Why did the big boys go 
to school in the winter only? What is " secondary education"? What 
is the influence of the flag over the schoolhouse? 
19 




CHAPTER XXXVI 



Clara Barton 



1830- 



OuR country has gained a high rank among the nations of 
the earth in many directions. Among them all we should 
not forget the great advantages it has given to women, and 
the famous exploits which have here been performed by 
women. America is celebrated throughout the world for its 
multitude of women who have distinguished themselves. 

In literature, for one thing, the American woman has 
occupied a very high place. In former times, women never 
had, in any country, equal literary advantages with men. A 
generation ago it was very rare, even in our own country, 
that one could find a woman who had received a collegiate 
education. In the city of Boston, even the schools which 
we now know as grammar schools were open only to boys 
until long after the war of the Revolution. 

In some towns, when Washington was President, the 
boys were sent home from school an hour earlier than 
the time for closing, both forenoon and afternoon, and then 
the girls came in ; or, in other cases, the girls came for an 



CLARA BARTON. 29I 

hour in the morning before the boys, and on Thursday after- 
noon, when the boys had a holiday. Even this concession to 
the education of girls occurred only during the summer 
months. Sometimes the reason which people gave why girls 
could not enjoy equal schooling with the boys was on account 
"of the female health." 

Great changes have taken place since those days. Now 
we have colleges for women as well as for men, and colleges 
which both men and women attend. Almost all public 
schools are open alike to girls and boys. 

In the early part of this century Mrs. Emma Willard gave 
a superior education to women in her seminary at Troy, 
New York. Miss Catherine Beecher educated many in her 
seminary at Hartford, Connecticut. A college course was 
opened to women at Oberlin, Ohio, as early as 1833. Three 
years later, Mary Lyon began her great work of educating 
girls in the Mount Holyoke Seminary, Massachusetts. To- 
day we meet in many communities almost as many young 
women who have been educated at college as young 
men. 

Now let us see what some of these women have done. 
Harriet Beecher vStowe wrote that wonderful story, " Uncle 
Tom's Cabin," which stirred the hearts of the whole world as 
to the evil of slavery. It was not the work of leisure hours. 
Many of its pages were written beside the kitchen fire, while 
the author was attending to the family cooking. When the 
book was published it created the widest excitement, both 
North and South. Everybody read it who read books at all. 
The very next year it was translated into ten different lan- 
guages. No other work of fiction in the English language 
was ever .so widely sold. 

In a similar way Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson aroused the 



292 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

nation in behalf of the Indians by her wonderful story of 
" Ramona." Of Mrs, Jackson, one prominent critic said : " She 
is a Murillo in literature." Of the story she wrote this has 
been said: " It is one of the most artistic creations of Ameri- 
can literature." 

But the time would fail to tell what our distinguished 
American women have done in literature. Louisa M. Alcott, 
Mary N. Murfree, who calls herself " Charles Egbert Crad- 
dock," Mary E. Wilkins, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Maria 
Mitchell, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, Kate Douglass Wig- 
gin, Ruth McEnery Stuart, Sarah Orne Jewett, Alice and 
Phoebe Gary, Lucy Larcom, Louise Chandler Moulton, Edna 
Dean Proctor, Margaret Preston, Harriet Prescott Spofford, 
and Margaret Deland are some of our brilliant authors. But 
there are so many of them that their names cannot be called. 
Let all honor be given to these wonderful women who have 
achieved such great success in the field of literature. Of one 
of them Whittier wrote : 

" O white soul ! from that far-oflf shore 

Float some sweet song the waters o'er; 
Our faith confirm, our fears dispel, 
With the old voice we loved so well !" 

But not alone in literature has woman's great talent and 
pure character made a place in American history. On the 
platform, in music, with the brush and the chisel in the 
artist's studio, in associated charities, and in the home 
woman has won her way, earned her laurels and achieved 
distinguished success. 

But it is in the field of philanthropy that we find among 
American women the most brilliant examples of sacrifice. 
Women have always been saying : 



CLARA BARTON. 293 

" Give me, dear Lord, some work to do. 

Some field to plough, some harvest rich to reap; 
Some mission to fulfil both grand and true — 
To feed Thy sheep." 

In doing for others, woman has everywhere shown special 
talent and achieved worthy success. 

Miss Dorothea L. Dix spent twenty years in studying the 
condition of paupers, lunatics, and prisoners in this country. 
She visited every State in the Union east of the Rocky 
Mountains, examining prisons, poorhouses, and lunatic 
asylums, trying to persuade the lawmakers and rich men to 
relieve the poor and needy ones. During our late Civil War 
she devoted four years to nursing wounded soldiers and 
improving hospital arrangements in connection with the 
army. 

One day, in the year 1898, the telegraph flashed the news 
to all parts of the American continent, and the ocean cable 
told to the nations of the Old World, that Frances E. Willard 
was dead. That telegram carried grief to the hearts of mil- 
lions. It is seldom that the death of one person brings sor- 
row to so many souls as in this case of Miss Willard. What 
had she done? Why was it that she was so greatly beloved 
the world over? It was her philanthropic spirit; her labors 
for the good of the race ; her great deeds ; her devotion in 
particular to the cause of temperance. 

Early in life she was a professor in college, and was earnest 
in her work; but she left that profession, and for a quarter of 
a century engaged, heart and soul, in the work of the 
Women's Christian Temperance Union, of which for nearly 
twenty years she was the president. As a speaker, as a writer, 
as a leader, Miss Willard gained rare credit. But after all, 
it was more her character, her unselfishness, her devotion 



294 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

to a great cause, which won the love and admiration of the 
world. 

We must hasten to speak of that distinguished person 
whose name stands at the head of this chapter. Everybody 
has heard of Clara Barton. What Florence Nightingale was 
to the Old World, Clara Barton has been to the New. 
Indeed, she has not been confined to the New World, for she 
has done the same work in France and in far-away Turkey, 
and then devoted her ceaseless activities to the relief of the 
starving Cubans and to the wounded and sick American 
soldiers in Cuba. We have chosen her name as a represen- 
tative woman. 

Let us see what a marvelous amount of work has been 
crowded into this one life. She was born in Worcester Coun- 
ty, Massachusetts, in 1830. She early learned to earn her own 
bread. She was a thorough housekeeper, and as clerk and 
book-keeper for her brother she learned the rules of business. 
Educated in the public schools, she became a school teacher 
when very young. She was employed in the Patent Office at 
Washington for three years, but in 1857 she lost her place be- 
cause she was suspected of holding anti-slavery sentiments. 

When the Civil War broke out, she heard the same call to 
which Miss Dix responded. vShe went to Washington. The 
troops gathered rapidly and soon the hospitals were filled. 
The work which she assigned to herself was the care of the 
sick, visiting them daily, carrying to them reading matter, 
comforting them with delicacies, writing letters to their 
friends. 

vSoon her work became known and her fame rapidly spread 
abroad. For a time she remained at Washington, with no 
authority, with no rank, with no pay, and subject to the orders 
of no one. Then she followed the army to the battle-field. 



CLARA BARTON. 



295 



She was at Fairfax Station after the second battle of Bull 
Run ; she was at Antietam, at Fredericksburg. She organ- 
ized a bureau of records of missing men in the army. The 
object of this bureau was to gather information concerning 
the missing and to communicate it to their friends. She was 
thus able to comfort thou- 
sands of families, having 
traced the fate of more 
than thirty thousand men. 

In this work for the 
soldiers she expended her 
w^hole fortune of $10,000. 
Then Congress voted her 
$15,000 to reimburse her 
for her expenditures and 
to help her carry on her 
bureau, which had proved 
of great service. 

After the war was over 
she went to Europe for her 
health. When the Franco- 
German War began in 
1870, she joined the Red 
Cross Society and helped 
to organize and reorganize the German hospital service. 
The story is told that after the surrender of Strasbiirg there 
were twenty thousand people homeless and hungry, and 
Miss Barton, at her own expense, provided material for 
thirty thousand garments to be made by women, who were 
thus able to earn their own food. 

Three years after this war, she returned to America and 
began a movement looking to the recognition of the Red 




RED CUOSS NURSE ON THK BATTLE-FIELD. 



296 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

Cross Society by our national government. She gained this 
recognition from our government in 1881, and became presi- 
dent of the American Association of the Red Cross. The 
constitution of this society says that its object is " to organize 
a system of national relief, and apply the same in mitigating 




THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD, AN OCCASION FOR RED CROSS RELIEF. 



suffering caused by war, pestilence, famine, and by calami- 
ties." One article in the constitution of the American 
society reads as follows : 

" That our society shall have for one of its objects to aid 
the suffering in times of great national calamities — such 
as floods, cyclones, great fires, pestilence, earthquakes, local 
famines, etc." Among the occasions of calamity when the 
services of the Red Cross have been called into requisition 
were the frightful forest fires which took place in Michi- 
gan and other sections of the great Northwest; the 
floods of 1882-84 in the Ohio and Mississippi rivers; sev- 
eral droughts in different sections; the Charleston earth- 



CLARA BARTON. 297 

quake, and particularly the terrible Johnstown disaster in 
Pennsylvania. 

This Johnstown disaster was almost the entire blotting out 
of the town by a flood. Houses were swept away, and the 
loss of life was great. This flood was occasioned by the 
breaking away of a dam upon the Little Conemaugh River, 
nine miles above the town, during a heavy rainfall. The 
waters swept down through the valley in one great wave, car- 
rying utter destruction to the fated city. The calamity awoke 
sympathy all over the country, and a fund was raised for the 
relief of the sufferers. Much of this fund was put into 
the hands of the Red Cross Society. The city was soon 
rebuilt, however, and is to-day much more prosperous and 
has a larger population than before this disaster. 

A few years ago occurred a cruel uprising of Mohamme- 
dans against the Christians of Asiatic Turkey. There were 
terrible massacres and immense suffering ensued, especially 
to the people who had been driven away from their homes. 
Clara Barton undertook to carry relief to the survivors, and, 
taking her life in her hand, she penetrated into that wild 
country, and like a good angel carried bread, clothing, and 
cheer to thousands of sufferers. 

Now came the civil war in Cuba, when the Cubans rose 
in opposition to the Spanish government. That government 
adopted severe and cruel measiires against the people of the 
unhappy island. Peaceful citizens, not connected with the 
army on either side, were forced by the Spanish soldiers to 
leave their homes, their farms, and their other industries, 
and to stay like prisoners within fortified towns. There they 
had no means of livelihood, and actual starvation soon began 
to carry them off by thousands. 

To their relief went Clara Barton, with supplies from the 



298 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 




CLARA BARTON. 



299 



benevolent people of the United States, ministering to their 
necessities, saving life, feeding the hungry, clothing the 
naked, conveying solace and cheer to those in the sharpest 
distress. 

There she remained till after the American battleship 
Maine was blown up in Havana Harbor and the Spaniards 
grew so bitter toward all Americans that she could not longer 
continue her labors. Our government advised United States 




THE " MAINE " AFTER THE EXPLOSION. 



citizens to leave Cuba, for war between our country and Spain 
was likely to begin at any hour, and it would not be safe for 
Americans to stay. 

Soon after her arrival in Washington our government 
declared war against Spain for her inhuman treatment of the 
Cubans. Then, while our warships were sweeping out to 
sea and while our soldiers were volunteering to fight the 
Spanish, Clara Barton began to organize a gigantic enter- 
prise, by which, under the Red Cross banner, our sick and 



300 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

wounded soldiers and sailors might be tenderly cared for, and 
also the poor, suffering, starving people of Cuba might re- 
ceive the relief which had been interrupted. 

Thousands of brave and good women wanted to enlist 
under her in this service, but only those who had some prep- 
aration in trained nursing could be accepted. The govern- 
ment had previously recognized the Red Cross vSociety, and 
now gave it every facility for carrying on its noble work and 
beautiful service for the sufferers in the war. 

Miss Barton secured from the Red Cross societies in vari- 
ous parts of our country great quantities of supplies, — food, 
medicines, comforts, and delicacies, — for the sick and suffer- 
ing, and soon again embarked for the seat of war. When 
the United States forces took Santiago de Cuba, Clara Barton 
and her faithful assistants were at the front, caring for the 
wounded and dying, even when the shot and shell were drop- 
ping all around them. Indeed, our generals thought it was 
not a fit place for women, there in the thick of the fight, and 
tried to persuade them to go to the rear ; but they absolutely 
refused to go, and went on with their good work without 
flinching or apparently minding the danger at all. 

Thus this "minister of mercy" braved every danger, and 
with force of will and kindness of heart relieved to the ut- 
most the horrors of war, comforting the smitten, writing 
letters for them to their friends at home, and by every pos- 
sible means mitigating the sufferings of the neglected, the 
sick, the wounded, and the dying. 

The war is over, but Miss Barton and her lieutenants still 
continue at their humane service, bringing comfort to friend 
and foe alike. 

Miss Barton's thrilling career from the beginning to the 
present time is that of an angel on earth. She has opened a 



CLARA BARTON. 30I 

way by which multitudes of others, great-hearted like her- 
self, can now imitate her in effectively and wisely carry- 
ing out the Golden Rule — giving water to the thirsty and 
food to the hungry, weeping with those that weep, help- 
ing those in distress, comforting the sorrowing, while 
remembering the Saviour's injunction: "Inasmuch as ye 
did it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye did 
it unto me." 

What a beautiful life is that of Clara Barton's — still ac- 
tive, earnest, vigorous, diligent! Soldiers are exempt from 
war at forty-five years of age ; Miss Barton does not exempt 
herself at sixty-eight. 

But there are many noble women in America, busy in va- 
rious directions, in literature, in education, in medicine, in 
religious work, in science, in journalism; women distin- 
guished as reformers, as philanthropists, on the platform ; 
women successful in music and art; in associated charities; 
but especially and everywhere women effective and great in 
the home. The women of America have fully kept pace 
with the men in the making of our history and in the making 
it noble. 

Describe the education which girls received a hundred years ago. 
Give an account of women's work in literature. Tell the story of 
Dorothea Dix. Give an account of the life of Frances E. Willard. 
Describe the work of Clara Barton during the Civil War; in the 
Franco-German War; in Armenia; in Cuba. Explain the purposes of 
the Red Cross Society. 

What made Florence Nightingale famous the world over? Do you 
think Frances Willard deserves a higher place in the regards of the 
people than Clara Barton? Why? Why not? What do you think of 
the great work done by Miss Barton? "Resolved: That a philan- 
thropist like Miss Barton can do more good in the world than a mil- 
lionaire.'" Would you take the affirmative or the negative of this 
question? Give briefly the arguments you would present in support 
of your opinion. 




LJ 



CHAPTER XXXVII 

Thomas A. Edison 

1847 



There is an old saying that a nation is happiest if it has 
no history. In this the word "history" means wars and dis- 
turbances, and conflicts. The idea is that when a country is 
quietly attending to its business, and is not troubled by any- 
thing unusual or remarkable, then it is most prosperous and 
its people most happy. 

Such has been the history of the United States since the 
great Civil War was ended. To tell the story of our country 
during the last third of a century is to give an account of 
quiet but rapid growth ; of important and universal improve- 
ments in the condition of the people. 

The country has grown in size, in population, in the num- 
ber of the States, and in the amount and character of its busi- 
ness. The condition of the people has been bettered by the 
increase of comforts in the homes, in the shops and offices, 
and in travel. A like history has never before been known. 

In 1865 the area of the United States was a little over 
three million square miles. Soon after the Civil War, we 
bought of Russia the great territory of Alaska, which added 
six hundred thousand miles more. At first this new region 



THOMAS A. EDISON. 



303 



was thought to be almost worthless; but the trade in seal 
skins has proved large enough to pay for the country. Be- 
sides, Alaska abounds in lumber and its fisheries are valu- 
able. Recent discoveries of gold are drawing great numbers 
of people to these cold regions of the north. 

The population of the United States has doubled since the 
Civil War. This has been a remarkable growth, and it is 
somewhat owing to the 
large number of people 
who have come to this 
country since the close 
of that war. About one- 
sixth of all the people in 
the United States to-day 
were born in foreign coun- 
tries. 

These immigrants have 
come from Great Britain 
and Ireland, from Ger- 
many, from Norway and 
Sweden, from Russia, from 
Spain and Portugal, from 
Italy and Austria, from 
China and Japan. They 
have come from near and from far; from all the civilized 
countries of the world and from many of those not civilized. 
They have come because they believed that life in the 
United States was easier and happier than in their home 
countries. They have come in great numbers and they have 
been cordially welcomed, for the most part. 

When the war was followed by peace, there were thirty- 
six vStates members of the Union. Twenty-six of these were 




GOLD HUNTERS IN ALASKA. 



304 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

east of the Mississippi River, having the same names and 
bounds as to-day. The great river was bordered on its west 
side by a row of five States, extending from Canada to the 
Gulf. Two States, Texas and Kansas, reached out farther 
westward, and then barren plain and mountain of almost end- 
less extent must be crossed to reach the three Pacific States. 

Now the thirty-six States have become forty-five. The 
Dakotas, Montana, Idaho, and Washington form the northern 
tier of States ; Nebraska, Wyoming Colorado, and Utah make 
the central line of communication between the centre of the 
country and the Pacific Coast. Only Arizona, New Mexico, 
Oklahoma, and Indian territories remain, which in time will 
be admitted to the Union, making our great nation a solid 
body of States, North and South, East and West. 

The year 1898 marked another expanse in our national 
area. The islands of Hawaii were annexed at their own re- 
quest. Porto Rico and the Philippines were the prizes of 
war. In time, Cuba, for whose independence the war with 
Spain was fought, may possibly, come voluntarily under the 
Stars and Stripes. Suddenly from a nation confined to a con- 
tinent, we have swept forth, south and west, and made terri- 
torial colonies of some of the richest islands of the seas. 

When we stop to consider the growth of this country in 
business lines we find an interesting story that would take 
volumes to tell. In agriculture the change is remarkable. 
Grain is almost raised by machinery. In place of horse- 
plows and hand rakes and scythes, the steam plow, sowers, 
reapers, and binders have come. Work is done by wholesale. 

In commerce, great steamers have obtained the business 
of the world. In manufactures, new and greatly improved 
machinery produces cheaper and better products. In mining, 
iron, copper, gold, silver, and other ores have been obtained 



THOMAS A. EDISON. 305 

in great quantities and with increasing ease and cheapness. 
In nearly all kinds of business the last thirty years have en- 
tirely changed processes and results. 

To what is this growth of the United States in comfort 
and prosperity due? Much of it is the result of invention. 
Perhaps in no other respect has the American mind more 
easily shown itself superior to that of other counJiries than in 
its inventive genius. We have read of Fulton and his steam- 
boat. Just as interesting is the account of Eli Whitney and 
the cotton-gin. 

The story of Samuel Slater and the introduction of cotton 
manufacturing into this country would interest any one. 
The steam locomotive was an English invention, which Amer- 
ica at once adopted. Our improved day coaches, sleeping- 
cars, and dining-cars are due to American ingenuity. The 
valuable air-brake was invented by an American. Our own 
Morse devised the electric telegraph. 

Let us complete our first steps in United States history 
by a short account of the greatest of Amercan inventors, 
Thomas A. Edison. 

Though born in Ohio, young Edison spent much of his 
boyhood in the State of Michigan. At an early age he was 
thrown upon his own resources, and for some time he earned 
his living as a newsboy on the railroad-train running between 
Detroit and Port Huron. 

While in this employment the fifteen-year old lad gave 
an illustration of shrewdness that indicated the coming man. 
One of the great battles of the Civil War had just been 
fought, and the Detroit evening papers were filled with its 
details. Young Edison had the news of the battle tele- 
graphed to the various villages along the line of the railroad 
and posted in conspicuous places upon bulletin-boards. 



306 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



Then he obtained a thousand copievS of the paper and took 
the evening train as usual for Port Huron. At the first sta- 
tion, where he usually had two customers, he quickly sold 
forty papers. At another station he found a crowd waiting, 
eagerly demanding the papers and gladly paying ten cents, 
or double the usual price, for a copy. 

Each station platform was packed as the train arrived, 
with a throng seeking an account of the battle. When he 
arrived at the end of his route and was walking the mile be- 
tween the depot and the village, he was met by a crowd of 
people coming to meet him. All wanted papers; all were 
afraid that he would not bring enough ; and therefore all 

came to get a paper as earl)" as pos- 
sible. He had no difficulty in selling 
all he had at twenty-five cents a copy. 
Most of Edison's inventive work 
has been connected with electricity. 
It was an act of bravery on the part 
of the newsboy that gave him 
his first insight into telegraphy 
and started him on his famous 
career. At one of the stations, 
where his train made a long 
stop, the little child of the sta- 
tion-master was playing on the 
platform. The child left the 
platform and sat down on the 
track, to play in the sand. A 
freight-car was rapidly coming down the rails, when Edison 
saw the child's danger and sprang to the rescue. The time 
was short, but the lad was agile and the child was saved, 
though the car just grazed young Edison as it passed. 




YOUNG EDISON SELLING PAPERS AT 
25 CENTS A COPY. 



THOMAS A. EDISON. 307 

The father desired to reward the hero, and offered to 
teach him how to telegraph, promising that in three months 
he should be ready for a good position. Edison quickly as- 
s ented, and for ten days appeared promptly forhe lesson. 
Then he was missed for a few days, when he again appeared, 
bringing with him a small set of telegraph instruments, which 
he had himself made. 

Long before the three months were finished, Edison had 
learned the work. He obtained a position as telegraph oper- 
ator, though still but fifteen years of age, at a salary of twenty- 
five dollars a month. His work was so satisfactory that he 
soon obtained better positions, and before he was eighteen 
his salary had become five times as large as at first. 

During these years Edison worked hard and never lost 
an opportunity to improve himself. While regularly attend- 
ing to his night-work at the office, he found time to devote 
to other matters. First, he read. He used the public li- 
brary ; he spent his surplus wages on books. 

One day he purchased an entire set of Faraday's works 
on electricity, brought them home at three o'clock in the 
morning, and breakfast-time found him still reading them. 

Besides, he continued his experiments, rigging up labora- 
tories in every place where he was at work — a plan which he 
had begun while a newsboy, making use of one of the old 
cars. 

Another day, while Edison was having a vacation, v/hich 
he was spending at home, he went down by the side of the 
river. This he found to be a raging current, filled with huge 
cakes of ice, which were causing great destruction wherever 
they were thrown. There was no possible means of com- 
munication across the river between Port Huron and Sarnia; 
even the wires under the river would not carry messages 



308 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



A sudden thought sent Edison to a near-by locomotive, 
and in a moment long and short toots were sounding out the 
telegraphic signals : " Hello, Sarnia ; Sarnia, do you get what 
I say?" With eager expectation the people listened for a 
reply. Again Edison sent out the words from the shrill 
whistle of the locomotive. After a time came a response, and 
communication of a peculiar nature was restored between the 
towns. 

When Edison was twenty-one, he secured a position in a 
telegraph office in Boston. Here he was at once compelled 
to show the material of which he was made. He was set to 

work to receive a long mes- 
sage from New York. At 
the other end of the line was 
the most rapid sender of the 
office. The Boston boys ex- 
pected to show this " young 
chap from the Woolly West," 
as they at first called him, 
that he knew but little about 
telegraphy. 

The message began slow- 
ly, but soon it came with 
greater and greater rapidity. 
Yet the young man had no 
trouble. After a time the 
words were coming about as 
fast as any operator could write them down. 

Edison glanced up and saw that every man in the room 
was standing behind him. He knew then that they were 
testing him. He kept on writing the message in a clear 
hand, though he occasionally stopped a moment to sharpen 




EDISON BEATING THE NEW YORK OPER- 
ATOR. 



THOMAS A. EDISON. 3O9 

a pencil. The New York operator, surprised at the ease 
with which his message was being taken, began to slur his 
words — to have too small spaces between them. But Edison 
was used to that also, and calmly continued writing. 

At last, when he had shown every one that he most cer- 
tainly did understand telegraphy, he stopped and ticked a 
message to New York, asking why the operator did not work 
a little faster. Edison's position in the Boston office was 
never questioned afterwards. 

But Edison had no intention of remaining a telegraph 
operator all his life. He kept on with his studies and ex- 
periments. One of these brought him good fortune. He 
made a stock-printer — a machine used in stock-exchanges for 
recording the price of stocks. When he went to New York, 
having finished his engagement in Boston, he was wander- 
ing through the city and happened into the vStock Exchange. 
It was the famous "Black Friday," which brought business 
ruin to many thousands. Everything was in the greatest 
confusion, and every one was more than ever dependent on 
the printed stock-lists. 

Just at this minute the stock-quotation printer broke 
down. The managers were almost crazed. They had no 
idea what was the trouble. Edison glanced at the machine, 
saw the trouble, and told the managers. The printer was 
repaired and began to work at once. Edison was the hero of 
the hour, and the next day was given charge of the machine 
at a salary nearly three times as large as he had ever re- 
ceived. He now began to be known to the world. 

His life from that time until the present is somewhat 
known to everybody. His first manufacturing establishment 
was at Newark, New Jersey. Three years later he moved to 
Menlo Park, about twenty-five miles from New York City. 



3IO FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 

His works here and the wonderful inventions that came from 
this factory brought to Edison the title of " The Wizard of 
Menlo Park." After ten years he moved again, and his es- 
establishment at Orange, New Jersey, is almost one of the 
wonders of the world. 

It would take a large book to describe the inventions that 
have been the result of Edison's work. A few of the best 
known only may be mentioned. He experimented with the 
telegraph, and step by step perfected the duplex, the quad- 
ruplex, and sextuplex systems of telegraphing. By the first 
a message can be sent each way over a single wire at the 
same time; by the second, two messages, and by the third, 
three messages, each way, at once. In other words, under 
the sextuplex system one wire will do the work of six wires 
under former conditions. 

Edison invented the transmitter which is universally 
used to-day in connection with the Bell telephone ; the mi- 
crophone, for magnifying sound, so that a very low sound 
can be plainly heard at some distance; the megaphone, for 
long-distance speaking; the phonograph, for recording sound 
and repeating it; the mimeograph, for making many copies 
from one writing; the kinetoscope, for reproducing views of 
bodies in action ; the phonokinetoscope, adding sound to 
sight, so that one may see and hear a play or an opera which 
has previously taken place — these are some of Edison's in- 
ventions. 

"The Wizard" is also noted for being the first to send 
telegraphic messages from moving trains ; for making one of 
the earliest electric railroads ; for perfecting the incandescent 
electric light. 

Something of Edison's persistency is shown in this connec- 
tion. At first he used a platinum wire in the little electric 



THOMAS A. EDISON. 3II 

lamp. He wanted something better. He wanted some form 
of bamboo or other vegetable fibre. He sent a man to explore 
China and Japan for bamboo. He sent another, who traveled 
twenty-three hundred miles up the Amazon River and finally 
reached the Pacific Ocean, searching for bamboo. He sent a 
third to Ceylon to spend years in a similar search. Eighty 
varieties of bamboo and three thousand specimens of other 
vegetable fibre were brought him. He tested them all ; three 
or four were found suitable. 

Such has been the life of a modern inventor, of one of 
the men who are rapidly changing the world by their discov- 
eries. They are having a large share in this work, but all 
other laborers have their share also. The America of the 
time of Benjamin Franklin was greatly unlike that of John 
Smith ; the United States that Abraham Lincoln knew was 
not the United States over which George Washington was 
President ; the nation of to-day is vastly superior to the na- 
tion of thirty years ago. 

It depends upon the boys and girls who are in school to- 
day to determine what shall be the condition of the United 
States, nay, even of the world, thirty years hence. 

Describe the growth of the United States in area; in population; 
in number of States ; in business. 

Give a brief list of American inventors. 

Give accounts of Edison as a newsboy; as a hero; as a telegraph 
operator. 

Tell the story of the telegraphic whistle; of the Boston operator; 
of the New York incident. 

Briefly mention some of Edison's great inventions. 

Do you think that the United States will ever have a greater area 
than at present? Ought all immigrants to this country to be welcomed 
to-day? Why are not the territories made States? Does agricultural 
machinery make dearer or cheaper foods? Of the stories told here 
about Edison, which showed quick thought? Which showed business 
ability? Which showed experience and practice? 



Index. 



Adams, Samuel, m. 
American Authors, 287. 
American Libraries, 287 
Annawan, 94. 
Atlantic Cable, 241. 

Baltimore, Lord, 82. 

Barlow, Joel, 187. 

Barton, Clara, 290; her childhood and 
youth, 294; in the. Civil War, 295; in 
the Franco-German War, 295 ; in 
Cuba, 297. 

Barton, Colonel William, 133. 

Blackstone, William, 67. 

Boston Tea Party, 116. 

Bradford, William, 56. 

British Army at New York, 132. 

Buttrick, Major, 126. 

Cabot, John, 30; and King Henry VIL, 
31; what he discovered, 34; England's 
claim to the Atlantic coast, 35. 

Calhoun, John C, 208. 

California and New Mexico ceded to the 
United States, 223. 

California, gold discovered, 225. 

Calvert, Cecil, 84. 

Calvert, Sir George, 82. 

Calvert, Leonard, 84. 

Cape Ann, 63. 

Cape Cod, 59. 

Champlain, Samuel de, 75-99. 

Church, Captain Benjamin, 94. 

Church, first at Salem, 69. 

Civil War, results of, 266. 

Clark, George Rogers, 157; plan to cap- 
ture the Northwest, 161 ; captures Kas- 
kaskia, 163; captures Vincennes, 164. 



Clay, Henry, 208; forgetting his poetry, 
212; "The Great Pacificator," 214. 

Clermont, 1S8. 

Cole, Hugh, 97. 

Columbus, Christopher, 15, the sailor, 16; 
the map that he studied, 17; at the con- 
vent, 20; the Prince, 22; his first voy- 
age, 23; land discovered, 24; his return 
to Spain, 26; his second voyage, 27; 
sent to Spain in chains, 28. 

Compromise of 1850, 215. 

Conant, Roger, 63. 

Confederate Generals, 256. 

Confederate States, 251. 

Connecticut Fundamental Laws, 72. 

Coitstitntion captures the Guc'rric?t\ 196. 

Continental Congress proposed, 117. 

Cornwallis surrendered, 145. 

Creamer, Jack, 193. 

Croatan, 47. 

Dare, Virginia, 45. 
Davis, Jefferson, 251. 
Dawes, William, 121. 
Decatur, Stephen, 190. 
Declaration of Independence, 119. 
Dix, Dorothea L., 293. 
Dorchester Heights, 132. 
Dover, New Hampshire, 64. 
Drake, Sir Francis, 42. 

Edison, Thomas A., 302; his boyhood 
and youth, 305; learns telegraphy, 306; 
studies electricity, 307 ; telegraphs with 
a locomotive whistle, 307; in the Stock 
Exchange, 309; an inventor, 310. 

Education, American system of, 286. 



314 



FIRST STEPS IN HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. 



Elizabeth, Queen, 56. 

Emerson, Rev. William, 126. 

Endicott, John, Governor, 64; his pear 
tree, 64. 

Farragut, David G., 270; anecdote ot his 
boyhood, 271; captures New Orleans, 
272; his victory in Mobile Bay, 273. 

Federal Convention, 169. 

Ferdinand, the King of Spain, 19. 

Field, Cyrus W., 240. 

Fitch, John, 185. 

Fox, George, 87. 

France, treaty with, 134. 

Franklin, Benjamin, 146; and the old 
apple woman, 147 ; and Addison's Spec- 
tator, 147 ; goes to New York and Phila- 
delphia, 148 ; inventions, 150; and the 
Queen of France, 151; toast, 139; in the 
Federal Convention, 152; and the "Ris- 
ing Sun," 154; grave, 155. 

French and Indian War, 104. 

Fulton, Robert, 184. 

Genoa, 15. 

Gettysburg, battle of, 259. 

Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 42. 

Grant, Ulysses S., 262; captures Fort 
Henry, 263; takes Fort Donelson, 263; 
battle of Shiloh, 263; the surrender of 
Vicksburg, 264; the campaign of the 
Wilderness, 264; the end of the war, 
264; his trip around the world, 268; his 
death, 269. 

Greene, Nathaniel, 140; reconquers the 
entire South, 144. 

Hamilton, Alexander, 166; at Yorktown, 
168; Secretary of the Treasury, 172. 

Hennepin, Father, 100. 

Henry, Patrick, 113; his speech against 
the Stamp Act, 175. 

Hooker, Thomas, 68. 

Houston, Samuel, 220. 

Hudson, Henry, 74. 

Hudson River, 75. 

Independence first proposed, 118. 
Independence decL red, 119. 



Jackson, Andrew, 199; the boy, refuses 
to obey a British officer, 199 ; at 
Natchez, 202 ; called "Old Hickory," 
202; at New Orleans, 204; elected Presi- 
dent, 205; his death, 207. 

James I., 56. 

Jamestown, 49. 

Jefferson, Thomas, 174; studies law at 
Williamsburg, 175; writes the Declara- 
tion of Independence, 176; President, 
177; and Adams, their death, 181. 

John, King of Portugal, 18. 

Johnstown flood, 296. 

Kentucky, pioneer life in, 160. 

La Salle, Cavalier de, 99; at the mouth t>f 
the Mississippi, loi ; his great expedi- 
tion, loi ; his death, 102. 

Lee, Robert E., 255; Peninsular cam- 
paign, 258; invasion of North, 259; sur- 
renders at Appomattox, 264; Presi- 
dent of Washington and Lee Univer- 
sity, 261 ; death of, 261. 

Lincoln, Abraham, 243; his birthplace, 
244; his boyhood, 245; earns his first 
dollar, 246; a storekeeper and postmas- 
ter, 248; a great reader, 247 ; in Con- 
gress, 249; elected President, 250; at 
Gettysburg, 252; Castelar's tribute, 253. 

Livingston, Robert R., 187; Minister to 
France, 177. 

Loe, Thomas, 88. 

Louisiana purchased by the United 
States, 180. 

Maine blown up in Havana harbor, 299. 
Manhattan, 76. 

Mann, Horace, 277; Secretary of Mas- 
sachusetts Board of Education, 278. 
Marco Polo, 17. 
Marquette, Father, 99. 
Mason and Dixon's line, 86. 
Massasoit, 69, 93. 
Maj'flower, 59; compact, 60. 
Merriinac and Motiitor, 258. 
Mexico, war with, 223. 
Minuit, Peter, 76, 78. 



INDEX. 



315 



Monmouth, battle of, 136. 

Montcalm, death of, no. 

Morey, Captain Samuel, 185. 

Morse, Samuel F. B., 235; anecdote: 
portrait of King George, 235; invents 
the telegraph, 237; his bill passes Con- 
gress, 238 ; the first telegraphic mes- 
sage, 239. 

Mount Vernon, 131. 

Napoleon proposes to sell Louisiana, 178. 
Narragansett Indians, 61. 
Naumkeag, 63. 

New Amsterdam captured by the Eng- 
lish, 80. 
New England, early schools in, 279. 
New Netherland, 76. 
Nullification, 205. 

Ortiz, John, 37. 

Penn, William, 87 ; tfeaty with the In- 
dians, gi. 

Pennsylvania, 90. 

Perry, Oliver Hazard, 196; his victory on 
Lake Erie, 196. 

Philadelphia, 91. 

Philip, King, 93. 

Pilgrims in Holland, 58. 

Pinzon Brothers, 22. 

Pitcaim, Major, 124. 

Plains of Abraham, 107. 

Plymouth, the landing at, 60. 

Pocahontas, 52. 

Poor Richard's Almanac, 149. 

Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 64. 

Powhatan, 53. 

Prescott, Samuel, 123. 

Prescott, General Richard, capture of, 133. 

Quakers, 87. 

Quebec, battle of , 104; surrender of, no. 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 41. 
Red Cross Society, 296. 
Revere, Paul, 121. 
Revolutionary war begun, 126. 
"Right of Secession," 211. 
Robinson, John, 58. 



Rolfe, John, 54. 
Ross, Betsey, 134. 
Rumsey, James, 185. 

Salem, Massachusetts, 65. 

Samoset, 61. 

Schools in the olden time, 280. 

Slavery Question, 250. 

Smith, John, 48. 

Soto, Ferdinand de, 36; the burial of, 39, 

Sowams, 69. 

Speedwell, 59. 

Stamp Act, 112. 

Stars and Stripes, the first flag, 134. 

Steamboat, the first American, 188, 

Stevens, John, 186. 

Stuyvesant, Peter, 74. 

Tarleton, Colonel, 143, 144. 

Texas, the " Lone Star" Republic, 221 ; 

annexed to the United States, 222. 
Tripoli, war with, 190. 

United States frigate captures the Mace- 
donian, 193. 
United States, its rapid growth, 303. 

Valley Forge, 134. 

Vergennes, Count de, his prophecy, no. 

Virginia Company, 48. 

War with Spain, 304. 

Washington, George, 129; his boyhood, 
130; Elm, 132; at prayer, 136; President, 
138; inaugurated, 171. 

Webster, Daniel, 208; his reply to Hayne, 
216. 

White, Rev. John, of Dorchester, 64. 

Whitman, Marcus, 228; his famous horse- 
back ride, 230 ; at Washington, 232 ; 
massacred, 233. 

Willard, Frances E., 293. 

Williams, Roger, 68. 

Winthrop, John, 63; Margaret, 66. 

Wolfe, James, 104; death of, 107; personal 
appearance of, 105. 

Women, early education of, in this 
country, 291; education of, 284; Amer- 
ican, distinguished as authors, 292. 



3l6 FIRST STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY, 



Books for Outside Readings 

Jl/acCcmn — Historical Geography of the United States. Bonner — Child's His- 
tory of the United States. Buttertvorth — Young Folks' History of America. 
Ellis — Youth's History of the United States. Markham — Colonial Days. Wright 
— Children's Stories in American History. 

Hale — Stories of Discovery. Trnvle — Marco Polo. Kingston — Notable Voyages, 
Abbott — American Pioneers and Patriots. Abbott — Ferdinand de Soto, lligginson— 
American Explorers. 

Henty — Under Drake's Flag. Toivle — Sir Vv^'alter Raleigh. Cooke — Stories of the 
Old Dominion. Cooke — My Lady Pocahontas. Egglestoti — Pocahontas. 

Bacon — Historical Pilgrimages in New England. Haivthorne — Grandfather's 
Chair. Hawthorne — Twice-Told Tales. Moore — Pilgrims and Puritans. Abbott — 
Myies Standish. Drake — Around the Hub. Gilman — The Story of Boston. Jl/oore 
— From Colony to Commonwealth. 

Abbott — Peter Stuyvesant. Irving — Sketch Book. Kennedy — Rob of the Bowl. 
Watson — The Great Peacemaker. 

Drake — Indian History for Young Folks. Catherwood — Story of Tonty. Henty 
—With Wolfe in Canada. 

Watson — Boston Tea Party. Greene — Peter and Polly. Preble — History of the 
Flag. IToodman — Boys and Girls of the Revolution. Sc udder — George Washington. 
Fiske — Washington and His Country. Henty — True to the Flag. Coffin — Boys of '76. 
Abbott — Blue-Jackets of '76. Ellet — Domestic History of the Revolution. Watson^ 
The Friend of George Washington. A/ayheto — Young Benjamin Franklin. JVilki/is 
— Adventures of Ann. 

Abbott — Daniel Boone. Bolton — Famous American Statesmen. Coffin — Building 
the Nation. • Upton — Our Early Presidents, their Wives and Children. Hale — Philip 
Nolan's Friends. 

Knox — Life of Robert Fulton. Hale — Stories of Inventions. Lossitig — Story of 
the United States Navy. Abbott — Blue-Jackets of 1812. Soley — Boys of 1812. 
Eggleston — Big Brother. Seatvell — Twelve Naval Captains. 

Brooks — Boy Settlers. Eggleston — Hoosier Schoolboy. Monroe — Golden Days 
of '49. Irving — Astoria. Brooks — Boy Emigrants. Wright — Children's Stories of 
American Progress. /'V^/a'— Story of the Atlantic Telegraph. 

Butterworth — In the Boyhood of Lincoln. Brooks — Abraham Lincoln. Coffin — 
Drum Beat of the Nation. Henty — With Lee in Virginia. Adanis — Our Standard 
Bearer. Page — Two Little Confederates. Coffin — Redeeming the Republic. Soley 
— Sailor Boys of '61. Abbott — Blue-Jackets of '61. 



Stepping Stones to Literature* 

A Unique Series of Eight School Readers 
upon an entirely New Plan, Brilliantly Illus- 
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By Sarah T.ouise Arnold, Supervisor of Schools, Boston, Mass., 
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317 



The World and Its People* 

A Series of Eight Geographical Readers, 

Charmingly Illustrated, for Supplementary 

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of the Family at Home. 

Under the Editorial supervision of LARKIN DUNTON, LL.D., 
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3^8 



oer 10 1898 



